Midnight Rose
by RainMercury
Summary: In this world, Raven Branwen abandoned her daughter to the care of her ex and disappeared from Vale entirely. In another world, she came back - only to find that the spitting image of her partner from STRQ had lost her own mother and was tugging at her heartstrings...and honestly, if she had to have a daughter, Ruby Rose definitely did more to match her color scheme.
1. Chapter 1

_From Dust 'Til Dawn_. A dust shop with a ridiculously punny name, located in one of the quieter commercial districts of Vale

What it did have going for it, was that it was the only 24 hour dust shop in the district and they stocked more than just dust. Weapons magazines, ammunition, parts. Anything a budding huntsman or huntress could ever dream to ask for on short notice.

If nothing else, hanging out here at night and listening to music was a fantastic way for any budding young hunter with a fascination for engineering and experimentation to spend their time without interruption.

Which was why this one in particular had a visage of deadpan disbelief when she was, in fact, interrupted...by a guy in a suit.

With a gun.

"Are you...trying to rob me?"

"Yes!"

" _Wow,_ You're an idiot."

Before the man could even think of shouting some form of wounded indignation at the blow to his ego, the girl before him had swept his legs out from under him with her own.

He was coughing up blood before his mind even caught up to the fact that he'd been knocked to the floor.

* * *

Roman Torchwick had been expecting an easy night. It was quiet, there wasn't a cop in sight, so it should have been quick and easy; get in, get the dust, get out, nobody gets hurt.

So when he heard a crashing about in the back of the store and sent another one of Junior's thugs to investigate, he certainly hadn't expected to see a crimson missile crash through the front window of the store, carrying aforementioned thug with it.

As one, he and the remaining thugs turned out to the street to see a shroud of blood red flower petals fall away, revealing a slim figure rising up from their knees and rolling their neck.

From what he could see - and luckily the figure was standing smack in the center of a street light or else he wouldn't have gotten much information at all thanks to the night time shadows - the 'figure' was a young girl.

Silver eyes turned to face them and he noted that this girl was wearing a stylized black long sleeve shirt, with a red stripe about her chest and red sleeves below the elbow, though her forearms themselves were covered with segmented black armor pieces.

Black knee high boots, black thigh high stockings and a short black skirt completed the lower assemblage of clothing, all covered by a red cloak that lifted slightly in the night time breeze.

She was also casually twirling what appeared to be a black bladed katana in her left hand, fingers of her right lazily drumming against the scabbard gripped as a sort of blunt instrument in her right.

A blunt instrument, mind you, that had just whacked the dazed thug beneath her in the side of the head.

Nobody had moved.

"Well? You guys just gonna stand there or…?" The girl asked, arching a brow up towards crimson-tipped, raven locks.

"...Oh for the love of...get her!" Torchwick grumbled when all three of the remaining thugs turned to him for orders, instead of...y'know... _fighting the girl_.

* * *

"Whoops, missed me!" The girl taunted as she somersaulted over a two-handed mace swing by the first - mindlessly charging - thug. He was rewarded for his efforts by way of the girl stomping down on his head and using him as a platform for a semblance-boosted jump towards the next thug.

The force of the goomba stomp was enough to send him face-planting into the asphalt next to his co-worker.

Meanwhile _Midnight Rose_ had blitzed through any attempt of a guard the second thug had even attempted, slicing deep into the man's side and sending him to the ground in a scream of agony while she casually flicked her blade clean of the blood - and raised her scabbard to block the swing of the last one standing.

As soon as his weapon met that scabbard, she spun, allowing his momentum to carry him forward while she took the chance to deliver a reverse gripped stab through his back with _Midnight Rose_ , skewering him along the black blade and holding while he froze in shocked agony...before she twisted the blade a quarter turn and ripped it free.

She raised her head to lock eyes with the boss of the group and arched a brow at him.

"I'm gonna be honest, I think you could have done this shoddy attempt at a robbery better on your own."

She presumed, based off the grumbling she received in response, that he agreed with her.

He was also at least somewhat smarter than his employees for the night, because he didn't really give her much of a chance to get the drop on him - raising his cane and firing something at her before she had the chance to take advantage of a villainous monologue or anything of the sort.

All she could really do was raise her arms to cross in front of her face and focus her aura to weather the blast.

Thankfully, he hadn't really aimed _at_ her, but at the ground in front of her.

Her first priority, upon dropping her arms, was to find out where her opponent was at. And when she registered the sight of him absolutely _booking_ it for a rooftop across the street, she let her instincts take over.

The hilt of _Midnight Rose_ clicked into the mouth of the scabbard and her right hand curled around the combined form, her left swishing her cloak back and grabbing an arrow out of the quiver that had been concealed beneath.

When the arrow found the side of the combined _Midnight Rose_ it glowed a faint purple as the concentrated effect field of the gravity dust contained in the scabbard took hold of it. She drew back, feeling the resistance of that gravity field increase, then took aim.

When she let fly, the arrow rocketed across the street, up into the air and buried itself into the calve of the man scrambling up the ladder.

She smirked.

His cry of pain and the fact that he nearly fell off the ladder gave her plenty of time to catch up to him with her semblance and meet him on top of the rooftop.

"Leaving already? We're having so much fun!"

More muttering.

And then there was a Bullhead.

"Really?! You have the funding to get a _Bullhead_ but not enough to get better mercs than that?!" The girl complained, shooting another arrow in his direction and hitting him in the shoulder before he could stumble onto the aircraft.

"I've had about enough of this, Red. End of the line!"

Well if that wasn't pretentious.

Or at least, it would have been had he not thrown a burn crystal out of the bullhead and skittering across the roof towards her feet.

A glance up to see him aiming his cane at it was all the incentive that Ruby needed to dart forward the three steps it took to scoop up the crystal and fling it back at him before he shot, then turning her back and shielding herself under her cloak.

When she heard the explosion, but felt _none_ of it, she was briefly confused.

The confusion went away when she turned around and saw a woman a blonde woman in very fancy getup maintaining a violet barrier glyph.

 _Well, this is going to be interesting…_

* * *

"Three men dead, two in the hospital. I hope you realize that your actions tonight will not be taken lightly, young lady."

" _Really?_ C'mon! They were robbing the store while pointing guns at me, am I not allowed to defend myself?"

"If it were up to me, you'd be sent home with a pat on the back…"

"You don't even know where I live!"

"...And a slap on the wrist."

And then the riding crop slapped down onto the girls wrist.

She winced, but otherwise didn't respond to the hit while she maintained eye contact with huntress. "Ow." She deadpanned, stretching her hand open and closed to try to work the sting out.

"But there's someone here who would like to see you."

As she stepped out of the way, the girl found herself looking up at a white haired man clad in green, carrying a tray of cookies and a glass of milk. She arched a brow.

Hey, free cookies. She wasn't going to complain.

"I'm afraid I never caught your name, Miss…?"

"Rose." The girl identified.

He looked at her further, seeming to expect more.

"Just Rose." Rose clarified, drumming her fingers on the table.

"Hmm…" He mused, leaning close to her.

She arched a brow again.

"You have silver eyes."

"Uh...yeah? Thought that was pretty obvious."

"Interesting...Where, may I ask, did you learn to do _this_?" He questioned, motioning to a display that the huntress now held in her hands, showing the battle - if it could even be called that - between her and the thugs from the store.

"My mom."

"I see…" He mused, placing the tray of cookies in front of her.

"Did your mom teach you to kill people as well?"

"She taught me to do whatever's necessary to stop a threat, yes."

"Hm." He mused again, blinking slightly when he noted that she was...basically inhaling the cookies after giving one the sniff test.

He arched a brow.

"Mmhat?" She asked, then paused, swallowed the rest of her cookie and cleared her throat. "Sorry, what? I didn't get the chance to eat dinner yet."

He waved her off. "So, what's an adorable girl such as yourself doing learning to fight like this?"

"I want to be a huntress."

"You want to slay monsters?"

"I want to help people." Rose corrected...Mostly to stop herself from saying that not all Monsters were Grimm.

"I'm fifteen. I grew up in Mistral, in the wilds. My mom and her family taught me everything I know, I didn't get the chance to go to a prep school, but I passed my Gen Ed cert course. So I figure I have two years to try to make an impression on someone if I want to go to Beacon, Atlas, or Shade."

An arched brow from the man on the other side of the table. "You said you're from Mistral, but you want to go to Beacon?"

"It's where my mom, dad, aunt and uncle all went." Rose explained, giving a one armed shrug. "And failing that, Atlas or Shade. I don't...have a very high opinion of Haven."

"I see...Do you know who I am, Miss Rose?"

"Either you're Professor Ozpin, or you're a very convincing duplicate of the Headmaster at Beacon."

"I am indeed. Hello."

"Nice to meet you."

"You want to come to my school?"

"It's my goal. And I don't give up on goals."

"...Well, alright then."

"...Wait, what?"

* * *

Rose was still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that she was, in fact, going to Beacon - Not in two years, but in two _days_.

She was staring up at the ceiling of her darkened hotel room, hands behind her head while she considered this, when the air in her room was ripped apart and everything was lit up by a sinister red glow.

She didn't react.

At least, not until she gave a small half smile when a figure stepped out of the tear and the portal collapsed in on itself a moment later.

"Hey, Mom." Rose greeted the masked woman standing over her bed, shifting up onto her elbows as the woman raised her hand and removed the mask, revealing the face of Raven Branwen.

"Good evening, Ruby."


	2. Chapter 2

"So uh...you know how you said I had two years to make a mark if I wanted to get into Beacon?" Rose chuckled, rubbing the back of her head.

Raven Branwen arched a brow, folding her arms.

"Well...Surprise! I did it."

Raven blinked. "It hasn't even been two _weeks_ since you left Mistral."

"Yeeeaaaah, I know. I stopped a robbery and Professor Goodwitch just happened to be in the area, and she was kind of mad at me because I killed a few of the robbers but then I met Professor Ozpin and it was really fun being snarky to him-."

Raven chuckled softly, reaching out to ruffle Rose's hair.

"Your mother would be proud of you, Ruby."

"Are _you_ proud of me, Mom?" Rose asked softly, ducking her head, yet looking up through her bangs at the chieftess of the Branwen tribe.

"I'm _always_ proud of you, Gem."

Raven didn't even fight when Rose's arms wrapped around her waist and pulled her in for a hug.

"Thanks, Mom." Ruby Rose Branwen murmured against her adoptive mothers' shirt.

* * *

"Are you sure about this, kiddo?" Taiyang Xiao Long questioned, his fingers running through the fur of one adorable - if durable - Corgi known by the name of Zwei.

Across from him, his daughter, Yang Xiao Long, hefted a duffle bag onto the floor next to the front door with a sigh. "I have to, Dad. She's out there somewhere, and it's my fault she's gone. I'm not going to stop until I find her and bring her home...but I need to be a Huntress to do that."

"Firecracker…" Taiyang started hesitantly, his own face falling at the mention of 'her'.

" _No_ , dad! My sister is _alive_ out there somewhere and I am going to find her if it's the last thing I freaking do!" Yang snapped, turning on her own father with crimson eyes and smoldering hair. Angry tears burning at her eyes.

Ten years.

It had been a little over ten years since the last time Yang had seen her baby sister.

Ten years since she loaded adorable little Ruby Rose onto a wagon and set off on a foolhardy search for her birth mother.

Gods, she had been _so_ stupid.

Ten years since the Grimm attacked them.

Ten years since an empty wagon was found by that cabin.

Eight years since the authorities stopped looking for her.

Three years since Ruby Rose was declared legally dead in absentia.

Yang Xiao Long refused to believe that. She would refuse to believe it until the day she either found her sister's body, or the day she died herself.

One way or another, she was going to find her sister.

Or she was going to die trying.

* * *

Apparently, death wasn't going to be necessary.

But even then, she hadn't expected it to be _this_ easy.

Yang stood in the airship, on the way to Beacon, staring in muted shock at the girl that stood by the window, earbud hanging from one ear while she bobbed her head to whatever music she was listening to.

Dark hair with crimson tips.

Silver eyes.

Red cloak.

Spitting image of Summer Rose.

There was no way this girl could be anyone else, was there?

But _how_?

How was she here on the airship to Beacon? She was only fifteen! And where had she _been_ for the last ten years? Why had she never come home?

And what was Yang supposed to say?

For ten years she had dreamed of finding her sister. Of bringing her home.

But she'd never thought of what she would say when she found her.

And so she just stared at the other girl blankly. Trying to figure that out. Figure out how and when to approach this girl. How to tell her she was her sister. How to ask her what had happened. Why she never came home.

How to say she was sorry for being the worst sister ever.

She was still trying to think of something when the airship landed at Beacon.

* * *

Beacon Academy, Rose decided, was paradise.

Everywhere she looked, there was some fascinating weapon for her roving eyes to hungrily devour. Collapsible staffs! Fire swords! Shotgunchucks!

Sure, _Midnight Rose_ was her pride and joy - a black and crimson dust action katana with channels for ice, burn and lightning dust, paired to a black saya she could wield as a blunt instrument, the two able to combine into either a gravity-dust powered longbow or a very long bladed naginata. - but there was always room in her heart for new ideas and backup options.

Like gyro-stabilized boomerang shuriken. Because those sounded _freaking awesome_!

But for that fantasy to become a reality, she would need tech that Atlas probably hadn't even developed yet, not to mention more funding than the clan would be able to afford for something as dubiously useful as a handful of homing shuriken.

And so she was back to scouring the student body, seeing what all goodies her new classmates ha-

The rumbling of a luggage cart filled her ears behind her, and it's approach didn't seem to be slowing, nor did it sound like it was going to the side - but rather, _right at her_. With a burst of her semblance she managed to sidestep out of the way enough so that the corner of the cart only crashed against her ankle, causing her to stumble off to the side.

"What the hell?! Watch where you're going!" She snapped, not even looking at the culprit as he was too busy hopping on one leg and kicking her foot to try and work the pain away. "Ow, ow, ow." She hissed, finally getting to a point where she could actually put weight on the foot and limp for a second, then turned to the cart.

Cases and bags that had been piled onto the cart were scattered all over the ground. Rose groaned in the back of her mind when she saw what very much looked to be a prissy rich girl making her way to the cart - and more specifically _her_ \- no doubt to broadcast a piece of her mind.

Wonderful.

She inhaled, ready to fire back at whatever snobby insult the girl through at he-

"Are you okay?"

...Huh?

Rose blinked, looking slightly downwards at blue eyes that looked more frustrated than furious. "Uh...Just a bruise, I think. I'll be fine."

Had Rose not been trained by her mother to pay attention to people's body language at all times, she might have missed the slumping of shoulders and the exhale of breath that belied a sense of relief.

Oh well, if the rich girl could act civilly around mere peasants, the least she could do was help her clean up the mess. "Here, let me help." She offered, walking over to the cart - with only a slight limp, now - to help pile cases and bags back onto it.

She picked up one of the cases and noticed a cloud of dust shake free from between the seams, causing her to freeze. "...You wouldn't happen to have dust in these, would you?"

She turned to the girl, who was already stomping forward to yank the case from her hands. Something Rose raised a hand to prevent, trying to keep the girl at arm's length.

She didn't succeed, feeling the case get yanked from her hand and another cloud of dust fly out of the thing. All while the girl was yelling at her.

"Do you have any idea what this-"

"What the hell, Princess?! I'm trying to tell you the seals might be-"

"-is?! Dust! Fire! Ice! Lightning! Energy!-"

"-broken! Stop waving it around you idiot!"

The buckles holding the case together decided to fail at that moment, vials of dust spilling out from the foam towards the ground.

Rose's eyes widened and she instinctively raised her aura.

And then things got very bright and very loud.

* * *

It felt like it took years of blinking wildly and shaking her head before Rose could see again, or get the ringing to die down enough she could even hear herself talk.

"What kind of _idiot_ waves a case of dust around?" She asked blearily, throwing an accusing glare at the similarly scorched form of the rich girl, before glancing around to see what the damage was.

"Idiot?! Do you have any idea who I am?!"

"A Princess with more pride than sense?" Rose asked dryly.

"Heiress, actually." A new voice sounded, stopping the indignant retort from the white haired girl in its tracks.

Rose turned to look at the owner of this new voice.

And let out a quiet whistle of appreciation.

She blinked when she saw the bow tie atop the new girls head...stiffen? In response to that whistle.

Rose only absently registered the ensuing explanation while otherwise pondering that bow, ignoring the huff of pride coming from _Weiss_ when the Schnee Dust Company was identified for what it was.

Only to smirk at the indignant squeak when the new girl _continued_ to identify the Schnee Dust Company for what it was.

"Like I said, more pride than sense." Rose drawled, prompting Weiss to stomp off in indignant frustration.

Rose chuckled, looking back up at the new girl.

"That book is great, by the way. I want to strangle the author, though." She offered, motioning to the book the raven-haired girl was holding.

That netted her a slow blink of amber eyes before the glanced down at the book for a moment, then back up at Rose.

"Seeyah." Rose continued, offering a two fingered wave and turning to walk back in...well, the direction everyone else had _been_ going before Weiss' cart crashed into her.

At least she wasn't limping anymore, so that was a plus.

* * *

If Yang had had any lingering doubt that the girl she'd noticed on the airship was her long lost baby sister (she didn't), it was dispelled the moment that said girl launched from her pad and turned into a crimson missile, streaking across the sky into the Emerald Forest with Rose petals fluttering down to earth in her wake.

She was still staring at that crimson streak when her own launch pad triggered about two seconds later.

It gave her a very convenient trail to follow.

 _The first person you make eye contact with will be your partner for the next four years._

She _had_ to find Ruby first.

Or, failing that, at least end up on the same team.

She used every shot she had available in her gauntlets at the moment to boost her off after the girl she believed to be her sister.

Which meant that she was all the more impressed when it became very clear that the amount of distance Ruby had obtained on her launch was not at all from the force of the pad itself, because Yang was already arching towards the ground and she wasn't even at the point where Ruby's flight had peaked.

So Yang made sure she hit the ground running.

She was _fairly_ confident that her and Ruby had probably had the two longest jumps in the group, everyone else having been focused on cushioning their initial landing point rather than extending their flight.

That meant that as long as she kept running and followed the trail of rose petals still lingering in the sky and floating down to Remnant, she'd be the first to lock eyes with her sister.

Gods, she hoped.


	3. Chapter 3

Blake Belladonna was a bundle of nerves.

Her eyes felt heavy and her movements were twitchy.

And really, it was all her own fault.

She knew that this entrance test was going to happen in the morning.

She knew she should have gotten a good night's rest.

But that girl in the red cloak had commented on her book.

And Blake had wanted to know what she'd meant; She had been about a quarter of the way through the book at that point in time...And to that point she had only been reading it because she had nothing else to do.

But when she settled down in the ballroom and decided to read until she fell asleep under the light of the shattered moon - all thanks to her Faunus sight, not that she would let anyone know that - that's when things started to fall apart.

About halfway into the book the plot started to hit. And it hit deep. And it hit hard.

So she decided one more chapter before she went to sleep.

And then that chapter had ended on a mini-cliffhanger.

And then the next.

And then the next.

And before she knew it, it was _well_ past midnight and she was at the end of the book.

And she'd found out exactly what the girl had meant when she said she wanted to strangle the author.

Because that ending - Don't get her wrong, it was a fantastic ending - but it wasn't the ending she had imagined. It wasn't the one she had found herself wanting with every turned page.

So that was why she was all jittery this morning, as she leapt from tree branch to tree branch, making her way through the Emerald Forest.

Because she was running off of about three hours of sleep and three cups of coffee, desperately hoping that she could make it through this test before the caffeine crash hit and she ended up dead on her feet.

Of course, Blake Belladonna and coffee were not well acquainted, and on top of making her jittery, it also put her mind into a state of attention-deficit-oooh-shiny.

So it was pretty much inevitable that her foot missed the next branch and she was falling.

She had time to widen her eyes, realize what was happening and tuck and roll before she hit the forest floor, ending up on her feet...But her shoulder had taken a hit that was certainly going to leave a bruise.

Oh, and there was a Giant Ursa in front of her.

Emphasis on the 'was'.

Because by the time she had blinked, registered what was in front of her and managed to grab the hilt of _Gambol Shroud_ , the Ursa was roaring in pain and collapsing on its side.

And there was the cloaked girl, flicking her blade clean of Grimm ichor and sheathing it back inside it's saya. "You alright? Looked like you took a pretty bad tumble there." She questioned, turning her attention to Blake as the Ursa dissolved into rose petals.

Silver met Gold.

 **-RWBY-**

"Jaune Arc, Nora Valkyrie, Pyrrha Nikos, Lie Ren." Professor Ozpin droned. "You four retrieved the White Rook pieces. You are now Team JNPR, led by...Jaune Arc."

Yang ignored the man, focused solely on the ground beneath her seat, trying to keep her breath steady.

She had failed.

She'd never found her sister in the Forest.

In fact, as far as she knew she had been the last one to find a partner. She had wandered the forest high and low before stumbling on Weiss Schnee - and don't even get her started on how she was going to be stuck with a prissy rich girl for the next four years - and they had reached the temple to find only one chess piece left to take.

"Rose Bloom, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao Long." Yang's head shot up, suddenly, blinking.

Did he say...Rose?

Sure enough, she glanced around and found three students, other than her, standing from their seats and making their way center stage.

Her own partner, Weiss.

A dark haired girl with a bow on her head.

And _Ruby_.

Yang felt like she could sob in relief.

* * *

Raven had always taught Rose to expect the unexpected.

But this was definitely not something Rose had even considered as a possibility.

 _Yang Xiao Long_.

She knew that name, of course. Even if Raven hadn't made sure that Rose knew about her family, she had still been five years old when Raven took her in. She _remembered_ Yang. Barely, but she did remember her.

So when silver eyes settled on the seemingly frazzled form of a girl who looked very much like a blonde version of her adoptive mother, it took everything in Rose's power not to just pause in place.

"From now on, you will be known as Team RWBY."

Her head had whipped around to look at Professor Ozpin so fast that it nearly gave her whiplash.

No one called her by her first name. No one, that is, except her mom. And Vernal. But mostly just her mom.

And she most certainly had not told Ozpin her first name.

But she also didn't believe in coincidences.

"Led by...Rose Bloom."

Fuck.

* * *

"R-Ruby?"

Rose sighed. She'd been expecting this.

She was laying on her stomach on her bed, reading a book. She glanced over at Yang, who had just entered from the bathroom, then turned to the other two occupants of the room, both of them having looked over in confusion - the lighter one having been muttering to herself ever since they got back to the room, the darker one shaking herself from what looked to be a nap. Debating for a moment whether or not to have them leave.

...Oh well, they'd find out soon enough anyway.

She pushed herself up from her position and methodically closed the book she was reading and set it next to her pillow on the bed.

What were you even supposed to say to a sister you hadn't seen in ten years?

She raised her eyes to meet the tear-filled, violet orbs of her sister, deciding to just go with the flow.

"Hey, sis."

The case in Weiss' hands hit the floor with a _thunk_.

" _Oh my gods,_ Ruby!" Yang breathed out in a choked voice.

And the next thing Rose knew, she was in marshmallow hell.

"I knew it. I _knew_ you were alive."

"I...won't be...for long...if you don't...get your tits...out of my face!" Rose strained, struggling to pull her face back far enough to inhale something other than her sisters boobs.

"O-oh, right. Sorry." Yang jumped back, suddenly looking self-conscious and awkward.

"Wait, what?" Weiss spoke up, drawing Rose's attention when she pointed between Yang and Rose.

"You two are…?"

"Yes, Princess. Yang's my sister."

Weiss blinked. Then huffed in indignation. "I have a _name_!" She protested.

"I know. I don't care." Rose smirked.

"It's Weiss! Weiss Schn-."

"What part of 'I don't care' do you not understand?" Rose interrupted, tilting her head. "Yeah, you're the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. Whoop dee doo. Good for you. That doesn't mean _anything_ here. Nobody cares who your father is, they care who _you_ are."

"Ruby, where have you _been_? It's been ten years…" Yang interrupted before Weiss could get a retort in. Rose knew Yang probably had a _lot_ of questions...but most of them weren't something that she could answer. At least, not until she'd talked to her mom.

"Mistral." She offered. She could tell that much, at least.

"...Mistral?" Yang questioned, blinking.

She was obviously hoping for more.

"Yep."

She didn't get it.

"...Okay, why are you _here_ then?"

"Because I want to be a Huntress, duh."

"But you're fifteen! And if you were in Mistral, why not go to Haven?"

"Wait, _what?_ " Weiss shrieked again, whipping her face to meet Yang's.

"Because mom, dad and Uncle Qrow all went here." Rose shrugged. "And Haven sucks. I'd rather go to Atlas or Shade."

"You're fifteen?!"

"Yes, Princess. I'm fifteen. Speaking of Atlas, why are _you_ here?" Rose wondered, turning to Weiss and tilting her head. "If you're gonna throw around daddy's name to get your way, that would have been a much better place to do it."

The glare she received was ice cold.

And Rose just stared back.

Raven's glares were so much scarier.

"It's _not_ his name." Weiss finally ground out.

"Oh?"

Once again, the subject switched when Yang stepped forward and pulled Rose into another hug, kind of ruining the staring contest that Rose was having with Weiss.

"Ruby, I'm so sorry…" Yang sniffled.

Rose softened.

She didn't fight the hug.

"It's Rose. And you have nothing to be sorry for."

"But...I almost got you killed…"

"It all worked out in the end, didn't it?"

The blonde didn't answer, but for a hiccup.

Rose glanced to Weiss, and cocked her head at Yang. A clear indication of 'mind if I take care of this?'

Not that she waited for an answer.

"Stop thinking about the past, Yang. It's been ten years. We can't change any of that. What we can do is kick this school's ass and show everyone how awesome we're gonna be, am I right?"

She grinned when that pulled a startled laugh out of her sniffling sister.

Yang pulled back, wiping her eyes clean.

"Damn straight."


	4. Chapter 4

"Wake up, Weisscicle."

Yang reached out, shaking Weiss' shoulder in an attempt to wake her partner up.

She received a drowsy swat to her hand for her troubles before Weiss turned over and curled back underneath the covers.

"Let her sleep, Goldilocks." Rose spoke up after this most recent failure. "We'll wake her up when we leave for breakfast. Not our fault if she doesn't have room to put her stuff later."

Rose, for her part, already had pretty much everything she'd brought with her to Vale - much less to Beacon - spread out on her bed. First, obviously, were her clothes - she wasn't going to be wearing the long sleeve shirt, gauntlets, or mini-skirt that were a color swapped copy of her mom's usual outfit to class if Beacon regulations had anything to say in the matter, so those were folded up on her mattress while she tried to get used to the longer, plaid skirt and heavier uniform jacket.

They could kiss her ass if they wanted her to give up her cloak, though.

She kept her boots and stockings too.

Beyond those, there was _Midnight Rose_ , sheathed inside it's saya, as well as her quiver and all of her arrows. Next to them, a cleaning kit and then further next to _that_ a bundle of sticks, a bag of black feathers and a box of arrowheads. - Materials for making new arrows.

Outside of that, she honestly didn't have much - a few changes of underwear, a couple extra pairs of stockings, one extra shirt and a stack of books; All of her textbooks, obviously, a couple notebooks, a few novels, a small stack of comic books and a reference book on mechanical engineering and weapon design.

Glancing to Yang and Blake's stacks of belongings, she found she had by far the least of anyone in the team, considering Weiss had an entire luggage cart full of stuff that hadn't even been unpacked yet.

Her partner didn't have _much_ more than her, a few extra outfits, but her book collection put Rose's to shame.

Her sister had a similar amount of outfits as Blake did, but good _lord_ the amount of hair-care accessories Yang had made Raven look like a slob when it came to her hair and Rose hadn't been completely sure that that was even possible. Also apparently Yang Xiao Long enjoyed video games. Like, a lot.

Rose snorted. Everything she had brought could easily fit inside of the provided footlocker. But they'd be lucky if Blake's book collection didn't take up every inch of shelf space in the room - not that Rose would complain about that, she liked reading too!

And so Rose set to work, stuffing all of her arrow making materials and her non-school related reading material, as well as her clothes and sleepwear, into her footlocker and then moving to help the other two instead.

She smirked when they finished, glancing at the clock on her scroll. Then looking at the surrounding room.

Weiss was _not_ going to have an easy time finding places to put her stuff.

Oh well, you snooze, you lose.

"Hey, Princess! Time for breakfast!" She shouted, throwing one of Weiss' textbooks at the girls' face and struggling to contain a snicker when the heiress nearly bolted out of bed and scrambled across the floor to get away from her attacker.

"Wh-wh-wha…?"

"Breakfast." Rose repeated, holding up her scroll. "Classes start at 9. It's 8:15. We have just enough time to grab something to eat before our first class. Might want to get dressed."

"WHY DIDN'T YOU WAKE ME UP EARLIER?!"

"We _tried_ , sleeping beauty." Rose smirked. "Well, Yang did anyway. You wanted to sleep in, so we let you sleep in."

"We're going to have to figure out where to put our beds when we get back." Yang mused, looking at the beds and realizing how cramped the room was already, without Weiss' stuff even being unpacked.

"Well, if we can't spread things out, we'll just have to go up, right? I'll talk to a teacher and see if we can a couple extra bookcases, a wardrobe and maybe some bunk beds if it comes to that. I call top bunk." Rose noted.

She paused to let that sink in.

"...Last one to the cafeteria has cleaning duty for the week!"

And then she disappeared in a shower of rose petals.

* * *

Rose was used to boredom.

Growing up with the tribe the primary ways for her to pass the time had been either training or reading whatever book she could get her hands on.

And that wasn't even to say how long one had to sit still when on a hunt, so as to avoid startling the game.

So - with all that in mind - you can be sure that when she says Professor Port's Grimm Studies class was _boring_ , she wasn't just being a spoiled little girl who was used to being entertained all the time. And she certainly hadn't expected to have to outright ignore him and spend her time reading the textbook just to stay awake.

So that's what she was doing - eyes darting over the page and seeking out any important information, while her left hand idly doodled a depiction of the Boarbatusk said textbook was talking about and noting certain qualities that she'd known both from experience and things the book itself mentioned.

Idly, she heard the soft snoring of Yang off to her right, but she paid it no mind - if Yang wanted to catch up on sleep instead of learn anything that could be useful later on, that was on her.

To her left, Blake was also reading, although the book she was looking at had nothing to do with the class.

In fact, Rose was pretty sure that Weiss - who was sitting between her and Yang - Was the only one in the entire classroom even _trying_ to listen to Professor Port - and she was shaking in her seat as the class went on in indignance that no one else was doing the same.

Rose just smirked, turning the page in the textbook and humming softly to herself.

Her smirk widened when she felt Weiss' glare smolder into the side of her neck.

"Hm?" She wondered, her head shooting up when she absently heard Port ask for a volunteer, she tilted her head away from the girl to her right when Weiss suddenly shouted a response while standing up in her seat.

Sheesh. Eager, much?

Rose closed her book and set her pencil down, deciding to raise her arms and stretch. Wincing when she heard more than a few joints pop while Weiss went to go change into her battle gear and get her weapon.

"What'd I miss?" Yang murmured, still trying to shake herself awake.

"Honestly, not much." Ruby noted dryly. "I'd just treat this as homeroom free study if I were you, I get the feeling his lecture is meant to supplement the textbook anyway, not the other way around."

She quieted when Weiss returned, settling back in her seat to observe, eyes widening in excitement when Port released a _Boarbatusk_ into the classroom and set it upon Weiss.

While she was excited, she didn't say anything. She wanted to see what she had to work with with her teammate...And to do that she needed to see how Weiss carried herself in a fight. She hadn't had the chance to see either her, nor Yang in action yet.

She didn't pick up her pencil. She didn't need it. It's not like she'd really had much of an opportunity to take _notes_ during combat training with the tribe. Weapon designs and engineering, yes. Combat training? No.

The first thing she noticed, with a wince, was how utterly unobservant Weiss was to the world around her. So focused was she on getting her stance perfect that she almost seemed to forget about the snarling Grimm right in front of her.

And then that point was hammered home with brutality when Weiss did finally start to fight the thing - her perfected stance quickly became less than perfect upon the first move - and of course, she didn't bother to fix it _then_...who would, when they were being attacked?

But the fact that she kept trying to batter her rapier against the armored plates of the monstrosity was even more baffling to Rose.

She had a gods-damned rapier! Stick the pointy bit between the plates! Or better yet, get the thing on its back and have a go at its _completely_ unprotected stomach!

Rose gave a soft groan and ducked her head into her hands when the fight was over, even though Weiss had won.

Yes, Weiss had won, but it had been _far_ sloppier than it should have been. It had taken far too long for a simple Boarbatusk and it had taken far too much out of Weiss to kill it.

But, Rose now had a plan.

Mostly one that involved her beating the crap out of Weiss with her semblance until Weiss started working off of instinct, instead of knowledge.

And if you accused Rose of just wanting to bash some snobby rich girl in the side of the head with _Midnight Rose_ 's saya...Well...You wouldn't be _wrong_.

* * *

After classes, Rose decided to go for a walk around the campus itself, leaving her Team with a wave - knowing that, likely, they were just going to go straight back to the room and try to figure out what to do with all of Weiss' _stuff_ for now.

Or whatever else they were going to do.

Rose really didn't care. She didn't control them and they didn't control her.

She pulled out her scroll after a few moments of quiet walking and punched in the familiar number.

She brought it to her ear and waited, listening to the rings absently.

"Hey, Mom." She greeted cheerily once she heard the phone pick up.

" _Ruby?"_ Raven's voice filtered through the speaker.

"Yep!"

" _Wasn't expecting you to call so soon, Gem."_

"Eh. I didn't really have anything else to do after classes. You'll _never_ guess what team I ended up with."

" _Oh dear Gods, did Ozpin use the chess pieces again?"_

"Oh, you got those too? Yeah!"

" _Alright, lay it on me."_

"Well, my partner's name is Blake. Blake Belladonna. I think she miiight maybe possibly be a faunus? Not sure. She wears a bow and I'm pretty sure I saw it twitch a couple times in the forest."

" _You_ think _she's a faunus?"_

"Again, Not sure! If she is I guess she's just hiding it. Wouldn't really blame her, with how faunus are treated. I'm certainly not going to call her on it. Especially given that we have _Weiss fucking Schnee_ on our team."

" _...You're joking."_

"Nope."

" _...Well, it was nice knowing you. How much do you think she's going to drive the team into the ground to feed her own ego?"_

"Well, she couldn't even if she wanted to. She's not the team leader."

" _...Are you?"_

"...Sadly, yes."

" _Well, I guess Ozpin does have_ some _semblance of sense in his body after all."_

"Hey, that's not nice!" Rose complained, though she didn't really mean anything by it, slowing her walk when she reached a garden and reaching up to brush her fingers over the leaves of a tree.

" _You know how I feel about Ozpin."_

"Yeah, yeah. You _were_ still the one that suggested I come here when you told me you were going to _kick me out of the tribe_ if I didn't follow my dream on my own."

" _Point. So who's the fourth?"_

"..."

" _..."_

"..."

" _...Ruby?"_

"So uh...Funny story, did you know Yang was coming to Beacon this year?"

" _..."_

"Yep. She recognized me, by the way. And then almost suffocated me with her tits. I'm assuming she got that overly affectionate streak from dad?"

There was a sigh from the other end of the call. _"...That and your mother, probably. What did you tell her?"_

"Just that I was in Mistral for the last ten years. Thankfully Weiss was being a brat and derailed the conversation before we got any further than that."

" _Okay then, what are you_ going _to tell her?"_

"You were wondering why I called so soon, weren't you?"

Another sigh.

" _Honestly, Ruby, what you tell her is up to you. I trust your judgment more than I trust my own, sometimes. Just...be careful. I don't want her to get angry at_ you. _"_

There was a long bit of silence after that.

"How would you feel about coming to visit during the Vytal Festival? I might be able to delay things until then."

" _Why do I feel like I'm about to be thrown into a den of hungry wolves?"_

"You can turn into a bird and fly. You'll be fine."

" _Ruby, that is_ not _the issue here."_

"Love you too, Mom!" Rose grinned against her scroll.

Another sigh.

" _You're going to be the death of me, one day. Yeah, I'll come by for the Festival. I love you too, now get off the phone and go do your homework or...something."_

Rose laughed and did as she was told.


	5. Chapter 5

"So! There we were, in the middle of the night…"

"It was day."

"We were _surrounded_ by Ursai…"

"They were Beowolves."

"Dozens of them!"

"Two of 'em."

"But they were no match! And in the end, Ren and I took them down and made a boatload of Lien selling Ursa skin rugs!"

"She's been having this recurring dream for nearly a month now."

Rose stood once Nora's tall tale had finished, turning to teams RWBY and JNPR with a cheerful look. "Excuse me, ladies and gents. I need to go use the little girls room."

She didn't wait for a response before prancing away from the table.

Not that she probably would have received one anyway; Nora was too absorbed in her own tale, Ren was too busy trying to corral Nora, Blake was reading a book, Weiss was filing her nails, Jaune was too busy playing with his food and Pyrrha was too busy looking at Jaune.

Which is to say, Yang was basically the only one that even noticed when her sister left.

Or had been paying attention to Nora's story, probably.

"Jaune, are you okay?" Pyrrha spoke cautiously.

So began the interrogation.

"Huh? Oh, yeah! Why?"

Weiss put down her file, Blake put down her book and suddenly Jaune had six pairs of eyes trained on him.

"Guys, c'mon, I'm fine. Seriously! Look!"

"Jaune, Cardin's been picking on you since the first week of school." The redhead by his side pressed.

"Who? Cardin Winchester? Naaaah...He just likes to mess around! You know, practical jokes!"

Six pairs of eyes continued to stare at him.

"Name _one_ time he's picked on me."

They named three.

"I didn't land _that_ far from the school…"

"Jaune, you know if you ever need help, you can just ask…" Pyrrha again.

"Oh! We'll break his legs!" Annnd now everyone was staring at Nora, mostly with unsettled looks.

"Guy's, really, it's fine! Besides, it's not like he's only a jerk to _me_. He's a jerk to everyone."

As if to prove his point, Jaune motioned with a thumb over his shoulder to the student in question, and all six of the other members of JNPR and RWBY bore witness to Cardin tugging on the ears of a crying rabbit faunus.

"Ow, that hurts! Please, stop…"

"I told you it was real!"

"Atrocious." Pyrrha scowled, turning back to the table. "I can't _stand_ people like him."

Any attempt to respond to her was interrupted by a scream that echoed around the cafeteria.

"AAAGH! WHAT THE HELL?!"

All of them blinked and slowly turned as one to the source of the scream; Cardin Winchester.

And there was Rose, his ear firmly grasped in her left hand and being yanked back away from the table by it.

"Oh, sorry. I thought you were into this kind of thing, what with the way you were pulling on _her_ ears." Rose noted cheerfully. "Here, let me get you lunch to make up for it."

An instant later, Cardin found his face planted into his food with enough force that the tray beneath cracked clean in two.

Rose calmly stared down his three teammates, her right hand planted in the back of his head and holding him down into the table despite his struggling as he tried to get her hand to release it's _painful_ grip on his hair.

When none of his teammates challenged her, she released him and pulled back. "Bon appetit, bitch."

Then she was brushing her hands off and turned to the rabbit girl, who was - like the rest of the cafeteria - frozen in shock. "You okay?"

Back at the table that teams RWBY and JNPR shared, The three jaws belonging to team RWBY were hanging slackly from their joints while the eyes of Pyrrha, Jaune and Ren had nearly bugged out of their sockets.

"That. Was. _Hot_." Nora declared.

They were still in that state when Rose returned, pulling the rabbit faunus girl along with her.

"Sorry guys, really had to go, what'd I miss?" Rose asked cheerfully, plopping herself back into her seat. "Oh, right. This is Velvet! I said she could come sit with us. Hope that's okay."

Six blank stares.

And Nora.

"That. Was. _AWESOME!_ "

"'Bon appetit, bitch'?" Yang asked, still slack-jawed. "Man, I need to work on my one-liners."

Rose just grinned.

* * *

"Uh...Binoculars!"

Rose sighed as Jaune fumbled through the answer, which Pyrrha obviously had attempted to help him with.

She smirked when Cardin laughed. Already knowing how _this_ was going to go when Professor Oobleck called on him to provide the answer - she was already waiting with her own answer.

"Well, I know it's a lot easier to train an _animal_ than a soldier."

"It's night vision." Rose corrected without even waiting for Oobleck to respond. "Faunus can see better in the dark. Though if your eyes have adapted to your head being that far up your ass, they might not have so much of an advantage against you."

"What was that?" Cardin growled at her.

"They have better hearing than you too, apparently." Rose drawled, resting her chin in her palm and blinking lazily at him.

"...Ahem." Blake cleared her throat, catching Rose's attention. Silver eyes roved over to her partner while the dark-themed ninja girl picked up where she left off and explained how General Lagune had done the most tactically stupid thing imaginable.

And threw in a jab about how Lagune might not be remembered as such a failure had he paid attention in class, all while staring straight at Cardin.

Rose snickered quietly.

Oh, her partner was the _best_.

* * *

"Comfy?" Rose asked, folding her arms together and leaning on the wall next to Team RWBY's dorm, tilting her head at Jaune.

He was sitting on the opposite side of the hall, against the wall next to his own team's room, with his head in his hands.

Or at least, they had been.

"Huh? Oh. Uh, hey Rose."

Rose allowed herself a giggle, pushing herself off of the wall and striding over to him. "Alright, enough of that. Come on, we're going for a walk."

"Uh...wha-?"

Rose rolled her eyes with another chuckle, leaning down and grabbing him by the bicep and bodily hauling him up to his feet.

"I _said_ , we're going for a walk. C'mon. What's on your mind?" She asked, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving him a light shove forward, before skipping a step to catch up with him.

"I uh…"

She waited while he hesitated... And then dropped his head in defeat after a moment of thought.

"I screwed up. I did something that I shouldn't have. And now Cardin has me on a leash, and Pyrrha won't even talk to me, and….And now I'm just starting to think coming to this school was a mistake. I'm a failure."

"So?"

He blinked, turning to her after a half-second of hesitation.

"What do you mean 'So?'?"

"So what? Nobody's perfect. Everybody fails sometime or another. It's what we decide to do when we fail that defines us. You can give up, sure. But that leaves Pyrrha, Nora and Ren in the dust. Do you really want to be known as the guy who abandoned his teammates because he didn't want to try?"

"I am trying!"

"Are you?" Rose challenged, turning to him. "You're afraid you're a failure as a team leader, right?"

"Well...yeah."

"So why are you trying to do everything on your own? That's not what a team does. You have seven people inside of shouting distance that would help you at the drop of a hat...okay, maybe six, Weiss _is_ a bit of a tsun...but the point is, all you have to do is ask. Why are you bashing your head against a proverbial wall trying to figure things out with trial and error when there's someone nearby who can just tell you the right way to do it? That's dumb."

"Uh…"

"And even if it wasn't, it's selfish. If this is about your masculine pride or some nonsense like that, it's time to get rid of it. This isn't about _you_ anymore, Jaune. You're a team leader. And you have three people counting on you."

Jaune slumped. "That's easy for you to say…"

Rose giggled again, bringing up a hand to cover her mouth.

"Jaune, I'm the leader of a team that includes a sister I hadn't seen in ten years, who still doesn't know where I've been or why I never came home, a prissy rich girl who can't understand that she didn't get picked to be team leader even though her last name is Schnee and a girl who talks more when putting Cardin in his place in class than she does the rest of the week combined. And I'm two years younger than _any_ of them. You think I have it easy?"

"...Wait, you have a sister?"

Rose's giggle turned into a laugh.

"Yes, Jaune. I have a sister." She supposed that her and Yang didn't really _broadcast_ that they were sisters out in public, mainly because things were still awkward behind closed doors, what with the secrets she was keeping for her mom's sake.

"Look, I know I sound harsh and I'm not the nicest girl in the school. But I believe in you. Yeah, you have it rough right now and yeah, you're not where you want to be. But I _know_ you're capable of being better. We all are."

"You don't understand, Rose."

"So make me."

There was a long silence as they turned a corner, Rose glancing to him periodically.

He sighed after a moment and ducked his head.

"I faked my transcripts."

"I don't even _have_ transcripts."

"...What?" Jaune blinked, turning to her.

"I never went to school. My family taught me everything I know. If you look in my school file all you're going to find is a copy of a Gen Ed Certificate and an excerpt from a police record detailing how I stopped a robbery. Believe me, even your real transcripts are probably better than mine."

Rose skipped in front and turned to face him.

"And that should tell you something. It doesn't matter where you came from, or how you got here. What matters is that you're here. And now that you're here the only thing that can stop you from being whatever you want to be is yourself."

There was a beat, then she gave a half smile and reached forward to give a light punch to his shoulder.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go take my own advice and try to be a good sister. Don't be a stranger, 'kay?"

And so she walked away.

She'd given Jaune Arc enough to think about for one night.


	6. Chapter 6

"Miss Bloom." Professor Goodwitch spoke up midway through their combat class, catching the attention of _all_ of Team RWBY; this had been the first time all semester that Glynda had called on Rose and both Yang and Weiss couldn't deny they found themselves excited at the prospect of seeing what their sister and undeserving leader, respectively, had to offer in the way of fighting skills.

Blake just winced.

"Yes ma'am?" Rose asked, looking up from her notebook. Seeing as she hadn't been called yet in this class, she had spent most of it sketching depictions of her classmates' weapons. With possible upgrade ideas attached.

"Do you think I could get you to spar without killing anyone?"

Killing.

The mention of that word gave Yang and Weiss pause, before glancing to Rose slowly for her response.

It was a shrug.

"Probably."

For Weiss and Yang both, their minds were racing at how casually Rose treated the accusatory question.

For Yang specifically, the thought of her baby sister being able to kill someone nearly made her nauseous.

"Hey! What gives you the right to-" The Blonde started, trying to stick up for her sister, her team leader!

"She's killed before, Miss Xiao Long." Goodwitch interrupted. "The night me and Professor Ozpin met her, in fact."

"And I told you, that was in self-defense." Rose noted, pushing herself to her feet.

"Be that as it may, I would prefer my students to have _minimal_ injuries during this class."

"Then I'll be careful."

"Very well. Rose Bloom versus Team CRDL. Please meet in the arena."

Yang slumped back into her chair.

Her little sister had killed someone.

She only pondered this for the time it took Team CRDL and Rose to get ready for their upcoming bout, shaking herself clear of her thoughts, both her and Weiss leaning forward to get a good look at the action.

Blake was just leaning her cheek into her hand, glancing at Team CRDL with a gaze that might have been sympathy if...y'know...She didn't despise the existence of all four of them.

"Ready?"

The five figures in the arena nodded, four of them holding sinister grins.

"Begin!"

Rose burst into a small cloud of rose petals and disappeared.

 _DING_ _"Dove Bronzewing eliminated."_

 _DING "Sky Lark eliminated."_

 _CRASH_

 _DING "Russell Thresh eliminated."_

"Wait, what." Both Yang and Weiss spoke while their eyes struggled to catch up to their ears and register what exactly had just happened.

Rose was standing over three limp bodies on the floor and calmly looking at the last remaining and namesake member of Team CRDL, smirking viciously at the scumbag she'd devoted her schooltime life to making miserable.

The aura meters of all three of his teammates were depleted into the red.

And the match clock read 0:02.

Two seconds.

It had taken Rose _two seconds_ to knock out three of the most intimidating presences in the class.

Yang blinked again, shaking her head.

Surely she was hallucinating?

Nope.

No she wasn't.

You could hear a pin drop inside of the classroom.

Replaying the sequence in her mind, it had appeared as if Rose had just...disappeared. And then reappeared an instant later in front of Dove, drawing _Midnight Rose_ as she had with a devastating slash.

The fact that his clothing was sliced clean through and the scorched cut on his chest backed up that memory.

Then she had twirled and Sky had tripped, falling forward...only to run face first into the oncoming saya of _Midnight Rose_ , smashing his nose and sending him flying onto his back and bouncing his head off of the floor.

The _fountain_ of blood coming from his nostrils corroborated that memory, as well.

At the same time, Rose had leveled _Midnight Rose_ in Russell's direction and the arena got very bright for an instant, followed by a loud crash of thunder.

By the time the flash had faded, Rose had been standing atop Russell's collapsed form.

"Aaaagh, I have had enough of you!" Cardin snarled, raising his mace and throwing himself at Rose.

Rose just somersaulted over him.

"Too slow!" She taunted.

He whirled around and threw himself at her with a sidearm swing of his mace.

She just leaned back out of the reach of that one. "Oh come on, you can do better than that."

He roared and sent the mace back at her with a return backhand swing.

She ducked under it.

"I thought you were better than the faunus, birdbrain? I've had a lot more challenge from faunus than from you."

A lightning quick slash of _Midnight Rose_ lanced out at Cardin's lead foot once the force of his swing caused him to stumble forward, but instead of following up what amounted to a love tap - that nevertheless took out a _quarter_ of Cardin's aura meter - she simply dashed out from under him to a safe distance.

"They see in the dark better than you…" She drawled, blocking another overhead smash of his mace with her saya for the brief instant it took her to spin away and smash the hilt of _Midnight Rose_ into his back.

And there went another tenth of his aura meter.

"They hear better than you…"

She twirled _Midnight Rose_ and stabbed it's tip down the floor, creating a wave of ice that engulfed Cardin's feet.

"And they're definitely more flexible than you. Honestly, I _wish_ I was a faunus." Rose admitted.

Cardin turned his attention to try to smash himself free of the ice around his feet.

And was smacked in the side of the head with Midnight Rose's saya.

A third of his aura meter disappeared.

The match was over then, with _Midnight Rose_ slashing down onto his back while he was trying to pick himself up off the floor from the previous hit, depleting the rest of his aura.

Yang just stared.

* * *

"Miss Bloom, would you mind explaining your strategy for that...match?" Professor Goodwitch had asked once Rose had returned to her seat.

Obviously she had hesitated to even call it a match.

"Sure." Rose shrugged with one arm, only briefly glancing up to note that Goodwitch had started a slow motion replay of the early stages of the fight on the screen once she had given permission.

"My semblance is speed. Since force is a function of mass times acceleration and power is a function of force times distance over time, that means I can hit _really hard_ if I get the chance to use my semblance. But, since I've focused so much on speed and dodging in my training, I can't afford to take hits that I don't have to. That means I need to eliminate threats as fast as possible."

She paused, glancing around the room. "I figure Cardin got picked to lead that team for a reason and he was on my far left. So I used my semblance to eliminate Dove, turned to hit Sky as hard as I could and used some lightning dust through _Midnight Rose_ in an attempt to stun Russell long enough for me to use my semblance to get to him. From there I kind of just relaxed and decided to toy with Cardin for a bit. In a real fight, I wouldn't have done that."

She gave another one armed shrug. "If you're looking for anyone in class to be able to learn something from this, my guess is that it would be to play to your strengths. I didn't give Dove, Sky, or Russell much of a chance to do anything, but Cardin _tried_ to play to his strength and reach advantage. He just broadcast his moves far too openly and I've trained to dodge hits from bruisers like him. I'd have a much harder time against my own team. Not necessarily because they're stronger, but because with their semblances they actually have the tools to deal with me. CRDL didn't."

She waited for a moment, to see if anyone had any questions or commentary.

"Very good points, Miss Bloom. Now remember, class. Tomorrow we will be going on a field trip into Forever Fall. Remember to prepare accordingly."

Rose shrugged and returned to her notebook. Honestly, that fight was child's play compared to the training that Raven and Vernal had put her through.

* * *

Rose frowned, looking at the notebook sheet she had been using to keep track of her grades so far during the semester.

She was acing Professor Goodwitch's class, as to be expected - the class itself was a breeze compared to Raven and Vernal, or the rest of the tribe for that matter.

She was also getting good marks in Professor Port's class, mostly because she had personal experience with a lot of the Grimm and spent the entirety of her class time reading the textbook. Everything she'd missed on the last quiz had been because she hadn't actually bothered paying attention to his lectures... And she was 90% sure that the only one in class that would have gotten those right was Weiss...And _maybe_ Ren.

Professor Peach's class, likewise, was right up her alley! Engineering! Math! Physics! Weapon Design! She took to it like a fish to water...Though her grades weren't perfect because all her knowledge up until now had been a self-taught hobby and she was missing more than a few pieces of the puzzle for the broader scope that this class was teaching, it was all still fascinating to her.

No, Doctor Oobleck's history class and Professor Yamada's speech and language composition classes were going to be the death of her if things continued as they had been.

She read comic books, fantasy-slash-sci-fi novels and engineering books! Not history books! And why in the world would anyone need to prepare a five minute speech for something that could be communicated in 30 seconds?! Wasn't the point of language to communicate an idea concisely?!

Then there was language composition! She liked to read, not write! Who cared about 'proper sentence structure' if it got the point across!?

She groaned and dropped her head into her hands. "Hey, Princess." She called, looking over at the bottom bunk across from her - she had requested (and gotten) actual bunk beds the first week of classes when it became clear that all Weiss' - ahem, _their_ \- stuff just wasn't going to fit if they had to have space for four separate beds. And so that was how Rose and Yang ended up with the top bunks above their respective partners.

There was a sigh. "Yes, Rose?" Weiss asked with all the fake politeness expected of Atlesian high society.

Rose allowed herself a chuckle.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how horrified would you be at the thought of helping me with history, speech, and language comp? My grades aren't...really where I would like them to be. Even though speech and language comp are _stupid_ and I have a fundamental problem with the concept of those two classes I'm going to have to do them whether I want to or not and _man_ isn't that thought depressing…"

"Wait wait wait, you're...asking me for help?" Weiss blinked.

"Well...yeah. You're like the smartest girl in class, Princess. I don't like your ego or the way you lord your last name over everyone, but I've never said you were _wrong_ and I certainly have never tried to dismiss the talents you do have."

"You _could_ still call me by my name…" Weiss muttered.

Rose snickered.

"Princess, I call my _own sister_ Goldilocks. Get used to it."

"...Right. I'm probably going to regret this, but why exactly are you saying speech and language comp are stupid, now?" Weiss sighed, massaging her forehead.

"Because they ignore the entire point of language! Language is meant for the concise communication of an idea. Why should I have to spend half an hour building a five minute speech to explain a concept that can be communicated in half the time? Like, I understand the point of emphasis but if it takes me five minutes of uninterrupted rambling to communicate that Dust is important, there's something incredibly wrong! And language comp is entirely too picky! Who cares if I use oxford commas?! Why does it matter if the point is communicated clearly?! It's the complete antithesis of what language is supposed to be!"

"THANK YOU!" Yang exclaimed from the top bunk, where she had been playing a video game on her scroll, dropping said scroll and pointing at her sister like she had just agreed with something that the blonde brawler had thought herself alone in thinking.

Weiss...blinked.

When you put it that way...

Rose...kind of had a point.

* * *

"Hey, Rose?" Weiss asked later that night, Rose's language comp homework spread around them - History was easy enough to set Rose on the right path. Give the girl a list of books to read and Weiss had no doubts in her mind that Rose Bloom would be caught up on their history class inside of a week. The girl and her partner both put Weiss to shame when it came to being a bookworm and that was _quite_ impressive.

"Hm?" Rose asked distractedly, rubbing her forehead while she read over a few lines from the language comp textbook, obviously frustrated and enjoying the brief distraction. Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives...who freaking _cared_?! Who honestly considered whether a word was a noun or a verb when they actually spoke it?! Who considered that when they were writing?!

"During combat class, when you mentioned that you'd have a much harder time against us than you did against CRDL...what did you mean by that?" The heiress questioned curiously. The comment that rose had added to the end of her strategy exposition having stuck around in her head for most of the day since.

"Oh." Rose gleefully dropped her pencil and looked up at Weiss with relief coating her features - she would gladly take this discussion over language composition at the moment, even though she knew she needed to work on the latter.

"That's easy, like I said. Your semblances actually give you the tools to deal with me. CRDL wasn't even paying attention until Goodwitch said to begin and by the time they reacted, the fight was already over."

"Yeah, I noticed." Weiss scoffed, folding her arms. "That doesn't explain how we would have better luck. Combat class is about all those four morons are good for."

"Simple. A fight between me and you three would entirely hinge on which of us reacted first at the start of the match. Do I react first and get the chance to charge at you, or do you react first and trap me with a binding glyph? If the former, I'd have to charge at you or Yang, because Blake would just pop a clone and we'd be right back where we started, but you could stop me in my tracks with a barrier glyph and there's always the possibility that Yang could just tank a hit from me long enough for you to trap me with a binding glyph and let her completely wreck me with the feedback effect from her semblance."

Weiss blinked, visualizing the fight in her mind and realizing precisely what Rose was talking about.

"In the off chance that I _did_ beat your initial binding glyph, that I _did_ get to you before you could put up a barrier glyph to take you out of the fight, and that I _did_ get to Yang and hit her hard enough to take her out before she could hit back, that still leaves Blake. And Blake's semblance is the perfect counter to my fighting style. I could charge at her with my semblance all day long and she could make clones all day long. It'd all boil down to which one of us ran out of energy or focus and made a mistake first. And I'm not going to rule out that it would be me to make the mistake. My entire style is built around ending a fight before I even _could_ make a mistake. Anyone who can stall me and keep me from doing that has a very good chance of beating me."

"And we can all stall you. Me and Blake especially." Weiss realized.

"Yup. If you weren't such a perfectionist you'd be even more of a threat than you are now." Rose admitted, stretching her arms out and letting out a yelp when more than a few satisfying _pops_ echoed from between her shoulder blades.

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" The heiress huffed, crossing her arms.

"It means you think too much, Princess." Rose shrugged. "I know you're smart enough to not just let me have the first move, so I'd like to think you would have used the binding glyph idea whether I told you or not just now. But if I did manage to get out of it, would you have thought to raise a barrier glyph? Would you have been able to come to that conclusion in time for it to matter?"

"Of course I-"

"Don't answer that, Weiss." Rose interrupted, for once using Weiss' name and reaching out to flick the heiress on the forehead. "I've seen you fight. And I know you spend way too much time worrying about yourself rather than your opponent. And I've seen how flustered you get when things don't go how you expect them to go. That Boarbatusk on the first day of school was a prime example. You were so worried about your stance that you were late reacting when it charged at you. And then you were scrambling to catch up the entire fight trying to think of what _you_ were supposed to do instead of what _it's_ weakness was."

"Because good form is important!"

"Yeah, it is!" Rose agreed, nodding. "But good form is important in _practice_. That's the entire point. Drill it into your muscle memory in _practice_ so that it just comes naturally in an actual fight. You _can't_ be worrying about something as silly as your foot placement in the middle of a fight."

"Grrrrgh…"

Rose smirked when Weiss started to shake in anger at the attack on her fighting skills. The blow to her ego.

"So while I have to deal with _that_. You have to deal with me being a stubborn idiot over _this_." She declared, motioning down at her language comp homework.

Weiss paused, blinking.

She looked up at Rose, who smiled sheepishly.

"So whattya say we both acknowledge that we're not perfect and help each other out?"


	7. Chapter 7

To say that Rose was bored would be putting it nicely.

"The Vytal Festival! Oh, this is absolutely wonderful!" Weiss swooned, eyes darting around the city that was in the stages of preparing for the upcoming Vytal Festival.

Rose just sighed in defeat.

She'd given up and resorted to inserting an earbud and starting up some tunes before the airship had even landed.

"Oh, the amount of planning and organization that goes into all this is simply _breathtaking_!"

"...Really, Princess? That's what you're excited about? Logistics?" Rose deadpanned.

"You really know how to take a good thing and make it sound boring." Yang agreed with a sigh of her own.

"Quiet, both of you." Weiss huffed, crossing her arms.

Rose sighed and turned to her partner. "Remind me to bring a book next time Weiss wants to visit the city." She pleaded.

Golden eyes roved over to her from where they had been observing while Weiss and Yang started to bicker. "There's a bookstore a block over that way." She noted, cocking her head to indicate the direction to which she was referring.

Rose followed the gesture.

And then blinked.

"Uh...guys?"

"You can't prove that!" Weiss scoffed...then both her and Yang blinked and as one, turned to face Rose. ""What?"" They asked in stereo, each tilting their head in the opposite direction in inquisition.

Rose rolled her eyes, gesturing with her arm.

They both blinked again and as one, turned to observe whatever Rose was trying to bring to their attention.

And then blinked in unison again.

""What happened there?"" They asked in stereo again, seeing all the police tape surrounding a dust shop with a shattered window.

Rose snorted.

"If you two are done bickering like an old married couple, maybe we can go find out?" She asked.

She didn't wait for their no-doubt indignant replies before strolling over towards the scene.

"That's the second one this week. And they left all the money again. It doesn't make any sense. Who the hell needs that much dust?"

Alarm bells began sounding in Rose's head. Dust shop robbery?

"I don't know. An army? White Fang, maybe?"

Oh, no…

"Hmph! The White Fang. What an awful bunch of degenerates!" Weiss huffed, turning her nose to the sky like the very thought of the violent faunus rights group was beneath her.

Rose groaned quietly and ducked her head, bringing up her right hand to pinch the bridge of her nose.

You see, Rose's sneaking suspicion that her partner was secretly a faunus had not at all dissipated since the start of the semester, especially considering Blake's vehement defense of the Faunus in class whenever Cardin opened his mouth.

Not that she was the only one to call Cardin on his shit, but she was the only one who went to lengths to explain the things that motivated the faunus, rather than just listing off biological facts or snarking at Cardin.

She was also the only one that never took off a cosmetic accessory that could very well be used to hide a faunus trait.

"What's _your_ problem?" Blake shot at the heiress.

Rose could have sworn there was a hissing undertone beneath that question.

Yep. This could only go over well.

She massaged her temples while she listened to ensuing debate about the merits of the White Fang...And the judgement that Weiss was slamming down on anyone who would dare associate with the group.

"Then they're _very_ misguided! Either way, it doesn't explain why they would rob a Dust shop in the middle of downtown Vale!"

"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum. Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal."

" _Ooo-kay_." Rose interrupted before Weiss could go any further, or before Blake could respond. "As _lovely_ as this conversation is, I'm too hungry to deal with drama right now. C'mon, Blake." She grabbed Blake's wrist and started pulling Blake down the street. "I want sushi."

She could have sworn she saw Blake's frustration vanish at the very mention of sushi.

* * *

"So, you want to talk about it?" Rose questioned, sitting across the table from Blake and picking up a piece of her smoked salmon roll with her chopsticks.

They'd left Yang and Weiss behind to do...well, whatever they wanted to do, really. Rose had honestly had no desire to follow Weiss around in the first place and it was quite clear that Blake needed a breather from the Princess and her pre-conceptions.

"...About what?" Blake asked cautiously, fiddling with her own chopsticks and seeming to try and decide whether she wanted to dig into tuna, crab, or salmon first among the three rolls she had ordered.

"About why Weiss' opinion on the White Fang frustrates you so much." Rose returned, popping the piece of sushi into her mouth and letting her eyes flutter closed to savor the taste of salmon and rice.

"It's not just about the White Fang. It's her opinion on faunus in general! She's just using the White Fang as an excuse to mistrust faunus and I can't take it anymore!"

"Because you're faunus yourself, right?" Rose asked softly, settling silver eyes on her partner.

Blake froze.

"H...how…?"

"Did I know?" Rose asked, keeping her voice gentle and grabbing another piece of sushi - this one a snow crab roll - to eat.

Her every movement was casual. No reason to make sudden movements.

There was a shaky nod, Blake's eyes darting around the restaurant as if looking for an escape.

"I didn't. Not for sure. I suspected. I thought I saw your bow twitch a few times. But I have enough secrets that I recognize when someone else is keeping something from me, and I didn't see a reason to press. Whether or not you're faunus doesn't matter to me. You're Blake Belladonna and you're my partner. That's what I care about."

The relief emanating from Blake when she slumped was palpable.

Rose hummed thoughtfully, chewing on her sushi and swallowing, before raising her chopsticks and pointing at Blake's plate. "Cat faunus, of some sort? Just curious, forgive me if it's a stereotype. You just seem to like fish and milk a lot. You're quiet on your feet and your balance is incredible."

Blake flushed and ducked her head, nodding. "Panther."

" _Nice_." Rose replied honestly. "I wasn't kidding, you know. In the fight against Team CRDL. There are a lot of times where I wish I was faunus."

"You'd be one of the few…"

"The others are idiots." Rose dismissed with a wave of her hand.

She reached over to Blake's plate and stole a tuna roll with a small smirk.

"Hey!" Blake complained.

"Hey, take some of mine if you want." Rose countered. "I told you, I have secrets of my own. This is one of them." She explained, holding up the stolen roll.

"...Sushi?"

"No, stealing." Rose corrected. "I grew up in a bandit camp. That's why I haven't told Yang where I've been for the last ten years. I'm used to doing whatever's necessary to survive. Whether that's stealing food and supplies, or killing grimm and rival bandits. I'm used to fighting...And not for fun."

Blake blinked slowly, staring at the piece of sushi in Rose's chopsticks before it disappeared into Rose's mouth.

She flushed at the image of Rose's lips, before shaking that sidetracked thought away.

"I guess that explains why you're so…"

"Brutal?"

"Yeah, that works."

"Right." Rose nodded. "I don't play around when I fight. My mom - my adoptive mom, that is - She taught me to do whatever it takes to eliminate a threat and to do it as quickly and efficiently as possible. Less time you take, the less chance you have to make a mistake."

Rose reached down, grabbed a snow crab roll with her chopsticks and shuffled it over to Blake's plate to replace the tuna roll she had stolen.

"The way you fight makes me think your training was similar."

"...Yeah." Blake sighed, grabbing the offered snow crab roll and bringing it up to devour, chewing thoughtfully.

"That's the other reason I'm so frustrated with Weiss. I...used to be part of the White Fang."

Rose nodded in acknowledgment. "But you're not anymore. I'm guessing you left because of many of the reasons she mentioned?"

Blake looked at her plate and considered her answer quietly, but eventually she nodded. "Yeah...But not every member is like that. I refuse to believe that. I still have friends in the White Fang and I won't deny what they're doing is wrong but…"

"You refuse to believe that they can't be reasoned with, can't be saved."

"Yes! Exactly!"

"Weiss isn't exactly known for her tact." Rose commented dryly.

"Yeah, I know. It's just…She's so…"

"Close-minded? Stubborn when it comes to accepting when she's wrong?"

"Are you just going to finish all my sentences?" Blake glowered, bow drooping.

Rose laughed.

"Yep."

"Hmph." Blake's response was not at all serious and Rose knew it.

"C'mon. Let's finish eating and hit up that bookstore." Rose offered, grabbing another piece of sushi and consuming it.

"Right. What are you gonna look for?"

"Not Ninjas of Love, I can tell you that." Rose teased.

She very much enjoyed how red Blake's face got.

"You know about those?!" She hissed in mortification.

"I have _no_ idea how you read those with company around, you filthy pervert."

"Hey! It is not filth!"

"I didn't say it was, I said you were."

"That's not better!"

There was nothing that could remove the smile on Rose's face in that moment.


	8. Chapter 8

Unfortunately for Rose, the universe had some kind of rule that her good cheer could only last _so_ long.

Lunch at the sushi joint had been fun, as had the trip to bookstore. Then her and Blake had dropped by a coffee shop and Rose had gotten a white chocolate mocha - Because who on Remnant _didn't_ like white chocolate mochas?! - to go, of course and they'd meandered their way back to the RWBY dorm.

And Rose had made the mistake of asking how the rest of Weiss and Yang's afternoon had gone.

Of _course_ it had been too much to ask for Weiss to have dropped the subject of the faunus and the White Fang.

The _first_ thing that Weiss mentioned was how they'd noticed a 'filthy faunus' that had stowed away on one of the ships and proceeded to run from the proper authorities like a 'monkey-tailed rapscallion'.

Blake's response was predictable.

Rose sighed, massaging her forehead again while she felt an oncoming migraine.

"We get it, Princess. You don't like the White Fang."

She wasn't ignored, but she certainly felt like it.

"Of course I don't! They're pure evil!"

"There's no such thing as pure evil!" Blake countered.

"Kill me." Rose groaned, casting her head back to stare up at the ceiling - begging whatever higher power existed to just _end this_ before things got any worse. - Meanwhile Weiss was busy explaining exactly why she hated the White Fang. Why she didn't trust the faunus.

And Rose might have had some sympathy for her.

Until she decided she needed to have the last word and overrode all the sympathy her story may have bought her by paraphrasing the story she'd just told, painting the entire organization with broad and escalating strokes.

"It's because they're a bunch of liars, thieves, and murderers!"

"Well maybe _we_ were just tired of being pushed around!"

 _Ah, shit_. Rose thought as soon as she'd heard the words, dropping her head into her hands before Blake herself had realized her freudian slip and started to glance between Weiss and Yang like a cornered animal.

Rose looked back up in time to see Weiss backing away in fear.

"I...I…" And then Blake was bolting out the door.

"Good job, Princess. Love the sensitivity." Rose shot off sarcastically. "Blake, wait up!" Rose called, rushing out the door with rose petals fluttering down to the floor in her wake.

* * *

"Blake!" Rose called, slowing to a more normal pace next to the cat faunus, who was glancing around the courtyard. Blake jumped, yelped, and turned to run away from Rose again when the former bandit groaned and darted in front of Blake with the use of her semblance.

"You can keep running, Blake. But I _promise_ you I can keep up with you." She raised her hands in placating manner. "It's okay. It's just me. I'm your partner. I'm on _your side_ here."

"I can't be here right now, Rose!" Blake fired back, reaching up to clutch at the ends of her hair.

Rose nodded. "Then let's go somewhere else. I'm not going to let Weiss' stupidity take my partner away from me." She held out a hand to the catgirl, beckoning gently with her fingers.

"C'mon, let's head back to Vale. I have some rewards points built up at a hotel. We can stay there tonight."

Blake was shaking in place, on the verge of crying.

"Why? Why are you so understanding?"

Rose snorted.

"We literally just had this conversation this morning, Blake." She pointed out, stepping forward and wrapping her hand around Blake's, squeezing gently.

"Everybody has done things that they're not proud of. I don't care what you are, I don't care what you've been. I care _who_ you are. And I like _who_ you are. So I'm not about to give that up because the Princess can't separate _who_ she is from _what_ she is."

There was a beat of silence.

"Okay...Let's go." Blake agreed.

Rose smiled, although this one was far more bittersweet than the one at lunch had been.

* * *

Rose hadn't been kidding - she had enough rewards points built up at the hotel she'd stayed in before coming to Beacon that they were able to get a room for the whole weekend for free.

Not that Rose would have minded spending the money; not if it kept her partner safe and comfortable.

Blake was quiet - more quiet than usual, even - and Rose understood.

So she let silence reign, for the most part.

She made sure that Blake always had a book she could read and busied herself with a book of her own, waiting for Blake.

What conversation was had, could hardly be called a conversation at all - rather than pressing Blake for more information, Rose offered information of her own.

"Yang thinks it was her fault."

"Hu-wha?" Blake asked, looking over from where she was curled up on her bed.

Rose just nodded.

"Ten years ago. You see, me and her have different mothers. She's two years older than me, but her mom left like...Right after she was born. My mom came along and had me. I don't remember for sure but honestly, I don't think Yang even knew she wasn't my mom's daughter until after my mom died when I was four."

Blake blinked, an ear atop her head twitching.

Rose gave a small half-smile. It took all of the composure training that Raven and Vernal had forced upon her not to squee and fangirl over those ears once Blake had removed her bow, because they were _fucking adorable_ and she would never let anyone tell her otherwise.

"My mom was great, y'know? Baker of cookies, slayer of monsters, always around to give a hug and sing a lullaby when you really needed it. And then she was gone. And somehow Yang found out that her real mom had left. So she took me and we went off on an adventure to try to find her mom. I was five, she was seven."

Ears twitched again.

"And we were alone. In a forest full of grimm."

"...Oh."

Rose laughed softly. "Yeah, exactly."

"So...what happened then?"

"I was taking a nap in the wagon that Yang had thought to bring along when a swarm of Beowolves attacked. She tried to wake me up and run, but we got separated. A Beowolf chased her off into the forest, but she tried to call for me the entire way. Encouraging me to run, promising me she would be back for me. That was the last time I ever saw her until Professor Ozpin assigned our teams."

"She didn't come back for you?"

"Oh, I have no doubt that she did. I just wasn't there. I had already been rescued by the woman who would become my adoptive mom."

"Oh."

"...Who just so happened to be the woman we were looking for in the first place."

"...Wait, you mean...?"

"Yep."

Blake blinked twice, her ears twitching while she tried to register this fact.

If Rose had learned anything since Blake had taken the bow off, it's that the bow itself had to be torture - resisting the urge to do something that felt so natural to express herself? She could only imagine how stiff and cramped Blake's ears got under there.

"I...thought you said you grew up in a bandit camp?"

"Yep."

"...So you're telling me that your real mom is - was? - Yang's adoptive mom, Yang's real mom is your adoptive mom...And also a bandit."

"Bandit Chieftess." Rose corrected, nodding.

"...Bandit Chieftess." Blake parroted. There was a beat of silence, before she laughed and flopped back down onto her bed. "Rose, what the hell is your life? It sounds like something out of a Ninjas doujin."

Rose grinned. "My life is crazy, not _lewd_."

She received a pillow to the face for her teasing.

Rose collapsed back onto her bed dramatically, not even bothering to remove the pillow.

There was a beat of silence.

And then she broke into giggles, finally reaching up to remove the pillow. She rolled onto her side and propped her head up on a hand, smiling softly over at Blake.

This was...fun. More fun than she'd had in a while.

It was enough to make Rose realize exactly how serious she'd gotten since Raven had made her leave the tribe. _Maybe I should start pranking people at Beacon_. She mused internally.

"Not that I can say much." Blake sighed, crossing her hands behind her head and staring up at the ceiling.

Rose sobered.

"I was in the White Fang for most of my life. Which isn't that hard to imagine considering I was basically born into it...My dad was...a pretty high ranking member."

Rose propped her head up higher, nodding along to show that Blake had her attention.

Blake sighed and closed her eyes.

"Things used to be _different_. After the war, the White Fang was meant to be a symbol of peace and unity. Humans and faunus, united in search of equality."

She gave a bitter scoff. "That was the idea, anyway."

"You can change the law, but you can't change people's hearts and minds overnight." Rose mused, guessing where that train of thought was going.

"Right. Despite the war, despite the promises of equality...Faunus were still subject to discrimination and hate. Nothing had changed. Humanity still thought of us as lesser beings."

"Or they just hoped you were. Just look at Cardin. Strip all the bravado away and the most bigoted people we know are usually the most insecure. They need somebody to be beneath them, because if there isn't…"

Blake considered that for a moment, eventually giving a nod of agreement.

"The White Fang tried to do that. Tried to change the hearts and minds peacefully. And I was there. At the front of every rally, at every boycott. And every time, it felt like we were making a difference. But _nothing_ actually _changed_. Just more broken promises."

"So the White Fang changed instead?" Rose prompted, receiving a nod.

"Five years ago. My-Our leader stepped down. And a new one took his place. New leader, new way of thinking."

"A more aggressive way of thinking." Rose mused.

"Protests turned into riots. Boycotts turned into arson. Embargoes turned into heists. And it was _working_. But it wasn't out of respect. It wasn't out of sympathy, or pity…"

"Fear."

Rose was well acquainted to the use of fear as a tool. As evidenced with Cardin; Raven had taught her that, as nice as it was to have a trusting relationship like the ones she shared with Rose and Vernal, sometimes you didn't have a choice. Sometimes there were people that just wouldn't respect you...So you had to make them.

Blake nodded, sniffling lightly. "I didn't want that. A victory like that...It's not worth it. It's not worth the price we were paying with our souls. So I left. And I decided to become a Huntress instead. I guess...I guess I was just trying to prove to myself that the White Fang isn't the only way. So here I am... A criminal hiding in plain view, all with the help of this thing." She held up the ribbon that made up her bow, giving another bitter laugh.

She started when the mattress dipped beneath her, her head snapping away from the bow to witness Rose, sitting on the bed next to her.

And then leaning over to hug her.

"You're not alone, Blake."


	9. Chapter 9

"So…" Rose started, pulling away from the hug.

"What're we doing, exactly? I understand if you don't want to go back to the dorm, but staying in here isn't exactly productive."

Blake's cheeks were flushed red from the hug, although she had found herself returning it.

The comforting contact had been...nice.

"I...don't know. I still have a hard time believing the White Fang is behind those robberies. They've _never_ needed that much Dust before."

"They don't have to be _behind_ it to be involved?" Rose suggested, settling a hand on the mattress between her and Blake. "Maybe it's Torchwick? He was trying to rob a dust shop when I ran him off. That's how I got into Beacon in the first place. I even taunted him about needing to find better thugs than what he'd had at the time. Maybe he did?"

Blake's eyes furrowed at the thought. "But Torchwick's _human_. The White Fang would _never_ work with a human."

"Unless he was offering something they really wanted. Like a way to get back at humanity? I mean, come on, whoever's behind this is stealing a _lot_ of Dust. Enough dust to do a lot of damage. Upset the balance of power. Overthrow a government if they really wanted to…."

"...Oh _gods_."

"Exactly." Rose noted grimly. "Maybe it isn't the White Fang. But right now they're the most likely suspects, unless you can think of _another_ group that would have a possible use for that much stolen dust."

Blake covered her face with her hands. "So...what? Am I just supposed to accept that Weiss is right? Give up hoping that the White Fang isn't beyond saving?"

"Oh, hell no." Rose answered, twisting her face in an expression of distaste. "I'm just saying, we have to eliminate the probable before we can really go searching the improbable. So let's try to prove the White Fang _isn't_ doing it."

"And how the hell are we going to do that?"

Rose shrugged. "Well, think about it. They're after dust. There's...what, six dust shops in this city? And they've already hit the two biggest ones. We could stake out one of the other dust shops, but the police are already going to be watching dust shops like hawks now, and the two shops that were already hit are going to need pretty big restocking shipments to get back in business. A shipment that would _probably_ be coming into the harbor?"

Blake blinked.

"...It's kind of scary how much you know about the strategy of stealing things."

-RWBY-

"I spy...something brown?"

"Is it a shipping container?"

Blake's dry response had Rose sigh in defeat. "Yes…"

Blake's face actually held a half smile. "Maybe the harbor isn't the best place for 'I spy'."

"Hey, it's better than reading yaoi doujins. At least I'm paying attention~." Rose grinned.

Blake flushed. "Shut up."

She hadn't, in fact, been reading anything! She was looking through a pair of binoculars out over the harbor itself, watching as the dock crew unloaded the Schnee Dust Company freighter and went home for the night.

"Besides, yuri and harem ecchi are _so_ much better anyway."

Blake _almost_ dropped the binoculars.

She definitely made a strangled noise.

Rose snickered.

"Now who's the pervert?" Blake muttered, face flushing lightly.

"I never said I wasn't-." Rose trailed off, her head turning to the side when she heard the whine of an approaching jet engine. "-You hear that?" She asked, glancing at Blake.

Blake had already twisted her head around to see the outline of a bullhead against the nighttime cityscape - it was running dark, only turning it's searchlight on once it reached the dockyard and swinging around as it looked for a place to land.

" _No…_ " Blake's response once the masked men stepped off of the bullhead was more of a whimper than anything else.

"I hate being right…" Rose sighed, dropping her head. "I'm sorry, Blake."

"What's the holdup?! We're not exactly the most inconspicuous bunch of thieves at the moment, so why don't you animals try to pick up the pace a little?"

Rose thunked her head against the top of the container below them with a groan. "And there's Torchwick. I _really_ hate being right."

"No! There is no way the White Fang would ever work with a human like _that_!" Blake hissed, reaching for the hilt of _Gambol Shroud_ and getting up to approach the edge of the container they were on.

"Wait, are we doing this?" Rose asked, lifting her head.

Blake walked off the edge and fell to the ground below.

"I guess we're doing this." Rose commented dryly, gripping the hilt of _Midnight Rose_ and following after her partner.

* * *

"No, you idiot! This isn't a leash!" Torchwick shouted at the White Fang member before him.

And then found a blade at his throat.

"What the-?"

Before he could turn to see Blake behind him, with _Gambol Shroud_ poised to cut him, a cloud of rose petals appeared in front of him, Rose having slid to a stop, facing him with her hand poised to draw _Midnight Rose_.

"Hey Torchwick. Long time, no see."

"Oh, for f-"

"Nobody move." Blake hissed.

Literally everybody moved, raising guns and drawing swords.

Rose glared, turning her attention to each individual faunus with narrowed eyes. "Hey, don't go aiming that at my partner, jackass." She threatened, falling into a half crouch evident of her ready stance.

"Oookay, okay. Eveeerybody take it easy." Torchwick urged, raising his hands to try and calm the tension in the air. He may be a criminal, but he wasn't in _any_ rush to start a firefight.

Especially not when _Gambol Shroud_ was poised to end his life in an instant.

Blake reached up and removed her bow, letting her cat ears twitch free for the first time since her and Rose had left the hotel for the night. "Brothers of the White Fang! Why are you aiding this scum?"

The White Fang personnel all lowered their weapons a little, glancing between each other. Which caused Rose to relax...just a little. Though she was certainly still ready to activate her semblance and cut a swath through these cultists if even one of them twitched.

"Oh, kid, didn't you get the memo? The White Fan and I are doing a little joint business venture together!"

" _Fuck,_ I hate being right." Rose muttered.

"Tell me what it is, or we put a stop to your little operation."

Rose gripped _Midnight Rose_ 's hilt and sank back into a ready stance as soon as more jet engines sounded.

"Well, I wouldn't exactly call it _little_ …"

Rose had already disappeared in a cloud of rose petals by the time a horrified Blake looked up and saw two more Bullheads flying into the area.

 _I'm sorry, Blake_. Rose despaired as _Midnight Rose_ began to carve its way through the bodies of faunus that had raised their guns and swords once more.

 _I'm sorry this didn't turn out how you'd hoped._ She continued, jumping from cultist to cultist with small bursts of her semblance, taking advantage of the force and power she generated with each dash.

 _I'm sorry Weiss is such an idiot_. Otherwise the two of them wouldn't be here at the docks, fighting such a lopsided battle that force Rose to fall back on instinct. Forced her to eliminate the threat.

 _I'm sorry I have to hurt these guys._ She winced as her blade tore through the thigh of another faunus and he fell to the ground screaming, blood gushing from the wound. She was trying, but it was hard to fight the instinct and she knew some of these people were going to die.

She heard the familiar explosion of Torchwick's cane, and redoubled her efforts to neutralize all the White Fang on the ground. _And I'm sorry I can't help you._

* * *

Yang sighed and ducked her head. Yet another failure in attempting to find out where her sister and sister's partner had disappeared to. "This isn't going well." She glanced out of the corner of her eye to see Weiss glancing around the nighttime city, as if she were just seeing the sights.

"Do you just not care if we find them? They're our teammates! And one of them is my sister!" She couldn't take it anymore. Weiss' attitude was well past the point of getting on her nerves and it was all Yang could do to keep her eyes violet at the moment, certainly her hair was already simmering with heat.

"Don't be stupid! Of _course_ I care! I just…" Weiss sighed. "I'm afraid. I know we owe Blake a chance to explain herself, but I'm _really_ scared of what she'll say when we give it to her. The innocent don't just _run_."

Yang might have thought about that - thought about the implications of what that said about Blake...and more importantly, what that said about her sister, who had followed Blake without question.

However, before she could, she was interrupted by a loud explosion on the horizon, in the direction of the harbor.

Her head snapped up.

Weiss' head snapped up.

They both glanced at each other, gave a nod and without another word, sprinted off in the direction of the commotion. _Ember Celica_ shifting into combat mode on Yang's wrists and _Myrtenaster_ finding itself in Weiss' left hand.

* * *

"Heeere, kitty, kitty, kitty…" Torchwick taunted, hefting his cane and smacking it up and down against his offhand.

Or at least he did.

Until an arrow buried itself in his right shoulder and released a shock of lighting dust, causing him to drop his cane involuntarily.

"GAH! Motherf-Not again!" Torchwick snapped, dropping to his knee and reaching back to favor the injury, glancing over his shoulder to see Rose rolling to her feet, _Midnight Rose_ held in her right hand in bow form.

She leaned forward, and Torchwick barely had enough time to scramble for his cane again, shoulder screaming in pain.

Rose appeared before him in a shower of rose petals, _Midnight Rose_ back in it's separated form. Both katana and saya were held in reverse grip and forcing the criminal mastermind back with a flurry of strikes.

She leapt backwards out of the way when he finally got the chance to aim the end of the cane at her and pull the trigger, causing another explosion.

She landed in front of Blake and re-connected _Midnight Rose_ back into bow form while the catgirl got to her feet and prepared _Gambol Shroud_.

"This is fun. Let's do it again sometime." Rose commented dryly, drawing an arrow from her quiver and taking aim at a White Fang cultist before letting loose.

"You and I have very different definitions of fun." Blake found herself firing back, raising the katana portion of her own weapon to spray gunfire at Torchwick's direction.

"Hey, it's a better date than a chick flick at the movies!"

"This is your idea of a _date?_ "

"Well, personally I liked sushi and a bookstore better, but it's always good to mix it up a little, right?"

Blake shot forward to block a swing from a cultist with a sword. "Wait, that was a date?"

She pulled back, preparing to block his strike again when an arrow buried itself in his shoulder and he was sent sprawling to the ground.

"I dunno, was it?"

"This is _so_ not the time for this!"

Then reality decided to split itself apart, a red portal ripping through space for a moment before a tall, dark haired woman walked through and paused, observing that chaos.

"Ruby, do I even want to…?"

"Oh, hey mom! Long story!"


	10. Chapter 10

After Raven's arrival, the fight at the docks was more or less over - with the damage that Rose and Blake had already done to the White Fang forces, the arrival of an unknown woman through a rip in the fabric of reality wasn't exactly something a wild card that someone with the survival instincts of Roman Torchwick wanted to deal with.

It was understandable, really. Considering that the first two cultists to make the mistake of rushing at her quickly found themselves missing some limbs.

Inside of a couple minutes, the fighting had stopped and the area surrounding the dockyard was suddenly silent, but for the crackling of fires that surrounded the wreckage left behind - mostly from Torchwick's cane.

Raven sighed and reached up to remove her mask, pressing her palm to her forehead and massaging her temple to prepare herself for whatever explanation her darling daughter would cook up for _this_ particular fiasco.

She instead found Rose rocketing into her with a lightspeed hug. "Why are you here?! Not that I'm upset that you're here, it's really great to see you. But I wasn't expecting you just yet! You could have warned me. Maybe then you wouldn't have shown up in the middle of a fight. Not that I you were in the way or anything because you're like never in the way but-"

Raven sighed, her pride demanding that she not give in so easily, but she found herself wrapping her arms around the girl that was the spitting image of her partner from Beacon all the same.

"Ruby." She breathed in what sounded akin to happy relief. "You are going to have a lot of explaining to do." She scolded, though the effect was lost considering she was squeezing the form of her adopted daughter like the little cookie monster was the most precious thing in the world to her.

Which wasn't exactly an inaccurate statement.

"Yeah, yeah. I missed you too, Mom." Rose sighed back happily, nuzzling against Raven's shoulder.

"Ruby! Ruby! Are you...Ruby?" A voice called out into the night sky, the sound of footfalls pounding into pavement echoing off of shipping containers.

Silver and crimson eyes flew open.

Raven and Rose both froze.

"Oh, crap." Rose muttered.

* * *

Yang froze at the sight before her.

Bodies were strewn all over the dockyard, as well as the wreckage of multiple shipping containers and a bullhead.

As much as that scene horrified her, it wasn't what currently had her attention.

Rose had her full attention.

'Mom.' Her younger sister had said. For some reason that word sent a shock of dread and morbid curiosity through Yang's entire body. Who could this woman be, to have replaced Summer Rose in Rose's heart?

And then her eyes registered _who_ her little sister was hugging.

"Oh, hey Yang! Fancy seeing you here, heheheee….Maaan do I have a story for you or what. Crazy weekend, yknow?" Rose blabbered, pulling away from the woman behind her and turning to Yang with an awkward laugh.

"...R-Ruby? Is that...who I think it is?"

"Who, this? Pssshaw. I mean...Probably not…? Who do you think it is?" Rose played off with another laugh.

"...My mother."

"...Okay, kinda sorta maybe yes?"

Yang actually felt her heart break in two at that. Felt her spirit shatter and her strength leave her.

She was on her knees before Weiss could even _try_ to hold her up.

" _Why?_ " The blonde asked in a choked breath, turning to Raven. "It wasn't enough that you left, you had to take my _sister_ from me too?" She was shaking. She couldn't even really see the other woman through the haze of unshed tears building inside her lilac eyes.

She clenched her fist, it was all she could do to keep those tears from falling.

"Yang, no…" Rose started, stepping forward and approaching Yang.

"WHY?!" Yang asked again. Letting the frustration from ten years of loneliness out. "Was I not good enough for you?!"

"Yang, I…" The dark haired woman started.

 _THWACK_.

Yang let out a gasp, her head whipping to the side and her ears ringing with the force of the slap. Her cheek stung. A lot.

"Ruby?!" The woman exclaimed in admonishment, but went ignored when Rose held up a hand in her direction, one finger pointed towards the sky in the universal sign language for 'wait just a friggin' second, I'm busy.'

"Yang, stop it. Right now." Rose demanded lowly.

"Stop it?! Ruby, she abandoned m-"

 _THWACK_.

"I said _stop it._ " Rose repeated.

"Ruby!" Raven repeated. Rose simply shook her still outstretched hand, with the finger raised as it had been.

"Why should I?! She left! She took you from me! You don't _understand_ what that's like!"

"NO, YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND!" Rose screamed back at Yang, her hands dropping and fists clenching at her sides while she _shook_ in anger.

Yang _recoiled_ from the vehement reply, eyes widening while Rose glared at her.

"You're her _daughter_! My sister! Do you think leaving you was _easy_ for either of us?! Because it fucking _wasn't_! I can't speak for why she left, but leaving you was the hardest thing I've ever had to do. She gave me a choice. I could have come home! I chose to stay with her because I thought it was the right thing to do. And as much as I wish I'd had my sister this whole time, I've never regretted that decision, even for a second! Because she needed me!"

Yang's heart broke further with each word out of Rose's mouth.

"And I didn't?" She asked weakly.

"No. No you didn't. Not like she did." Rose answered quietly, bringing up a hand to pinch her nose.

And then she suddenly turned away with a frustrated noise escaping her throat. "I could give you all the reasons and excuses in the world for why we did what we did, but I can't deal with you right now. I'm tired, I'm hungry, and I just want to talk to my mom, take a shower, and go to sleep." She declared, stalking off towards where Raven and Blake were both just awkwardly observing the confrontation between siblings. "C'mon, let's go." She insisted, grabbing Blake's wrist and stalking off towards the city before the catgirl could so much as yelp a question or a protest.

"Wait...Ruby…" Yang cried out, reaching for Rose, although she didn't actually get to her feet and only ended up falling forward, needing to be supported by her free hand. " _Please_ don't go. I can't lose you again…"

Rose's face softened and she looked back over her shoulder at her headstrong sister. "I'm not leaving, Goldilocks. I'm just going away until we can talk like mature human beings instead of screaming at each other like children. I'll see you in class tomorrow, I promise."

-RWBY-

"R-Rose?" Blake questioned after a few moments, once they were out of earshot of Yang and Weiss, at least.

If her face had flushed when Rose's hand slipped down to entangle into hers, it was purely coincidental and she would never admit otherwise.

She cleared her throat. "Where are we going? What was that? ...Wait, is it Rose or Ruby? I'm so confused." The catgirl admitted, reaching a hand up to press against her forehead.

"To the hotel, obviously! I'm not about to go back to the dorm after _that_ little bit of family drama. Besides, Mom can just portal us to school in the morning. Right mom?"

There was a sigh.

"Yes, Ruby. I suppose I could." Raven offered dryly and unenthusiastically.

"See? No problem whatsoever! Oh, right. My name. It's _technically_ Ruby Rose Xiao Long-Branwen, but that's a bit of a mouthful, so I just shorten it to Rose Branwen. Only mom really calls me Ruby. Bloom's just an alias...I'm admittedly not the most creative person on the planet." Rose giggled awkwardly.

"The tribe members you pranked on a weekly basis would beg to differ." Raven commented off-handedly.

Blake blinked.

"Pranks? Rose?"

Raven blinked herself, and then turned to Rose.

"Don't tell me you actually started to _behave_ when you went to Beacon…"

Rose pouted and let off a huff. "I was distracted, okay?! The whole situation with Yang and Weiss and being a team leader and Blakey here being a faunus and trying to catch up because good grief do you know how annoying language comp and speech classes are? And then there's this moron in our class who just picks on people all the time and I've kind of just been been focused on counter-bullying him but he's not worth pranking so-."

"Ruby."

Rose took in a deep breath, stopping her rambling session. "Right,.sorry. No, I haven't really pranked anyone at Beacon. I just kind of realized that last night."

"I'm not sure whether to be proud or disappointed…" Raven chuckled, shaking her head.

"Mooooommmm." Rose whined in complaint. Then paused, straightening as if a proverbial light bulb had just flicked on inside of her brain. "Oh, right! Mom, this is my partner, Blake Belladonna! Blake, this is my mom, Raven Xiao Looooo-just Branwen. Well, I mean, not legally but technically because you know there was never a-."

Rose noticed the crimson stare leveled at her.

"You know what? Shutting up now."

"Oh, no. Please, little Rose...continue." Raven noted with crossed arms and a dry smirk.

"...Right. Well, y'see, Mom here is still _technically_ married to Dad? I think? Which is why my name was just Ruby Rose until she adopted me. Because my mother's name was just Rose. Because she couldn't marry Dad because he was already married."

"...So you're saying that the craziness surrounding you didn't start with you." Blake summarized. That was...just about the only takeaway she could get from that.

"Oh, you have no idea!" Rose laughed awkwardly, reaching up to rub the back of her head. "Considering mom was in love my mother and dad at the same time and I think it was mutual and then they were all in a team with mom's brother and...yeaaah."

Raven cleared her throat. "Ruby?" She asked sweetly.

"Yes, mom?"

"Please shut up."

"Okay!"


	11. Chapter 11

**A Wild Author's Note appears!**

 **Alright, here's the deal: I don't do Author's Notes. So if you leave a review and you want me to respond to it, _make a fucking account_ so I can PM you.**

 **Now. That being said. There is one particular opinionated reviewer that seems to want me to respond to him, so here we go:**

 **Rooster Teeth isn't good at writing. That should be pretty freaking obvious just based off of how Volume 4 and 5 have gone when it comes to RWBY. The White Fang and anti-Faunus racism in the show have been entirely informed attributes because RT has been incapable of portraying it on the screen. And yes, the White Fang kills people for their ideology, but the existence of ISIS doesn't make Islamophobia any less of a problem.**

 **And on Ruby being immature...Uh...duh? She was raised by the single most entitled and slap-worthy character in the entire fucking RWBY universe. She's not supposed to be mature. She's supposed to be Ruby's idealism mixed with Raven's arrogance and edge.**

 **If you have any further comments and want them addressed, make an account and stop hiding behind anonymity.**

* * *

To say that the rest of the term and the brief break that followed was _awkward_ was like saying that dust was a notable discovery; technically correct, but so woefully inadequate when it came to describing the scope and scale of the situation in question.

And Yang didn't know what to do.

For the last two weeks since the encounter with her birth mother at the docks, neither Rose nor Blake had returned to the dorm. They'd been in class, sure. But the pair seemed to disappear into the student body as soon as class ended and in the off chance that Yang caught either of them before they could disappear, she was brushed off with a brusque answer from Rose.

She just didn't know what to do.

She was still so...so _angry_.

Her mother had _left her_. Abandoned her and never returned. That was a hard enough fact to swallow to begin with, when Yang hadn't known the full scope of the truth. It had been hard, but it had been bearable because for the majority of her life, she'd either had Summer around treating her like her own flesh and blood - to the point that Yang wasn't aware she _wasn't_ until Summer was already gone - or she'd been far more concerned with the search for her missing baby sister.

But now those two horrifying pieces of her life had come together into something awful and ugly.

She was _so_ angry at Raven - for abandoning her, for stealing her sister…

But she was also so _sad_. Her mother had chosen her sister over her. Her sister had chosen her mother over her sister and her father. And she didn't know _why_.

She had been so happy, so relieved to see Rose on that airship coming to Beacon. She had been ecstatic when they ended up on the same team. And she could have died happy when Rose had accepted her as a sister.

Though she had been worried when Rose had given the bare minimal amount of information about what had happened to her and where she had been for the last ten years.

And she had been downright terrified when she saw the Huntress in training that Rose had become. How easily she had been able to _dismantle_ Team CRDL, the insinuation from Professor Goodwitch that she had killed people... Then came the docks, where she _saw_ the truth in that with a multitude of limp faunus, all either hanging onto life by a thin thread or already lost in the abyss of mortality. Most of them to a blade - which meant it _could_ have been Rose, or Blake, or Raven herself that had done the deed.

But there had been a few felled by arrows.

And there was no one else who could have done that than Rose.

She was so angry.

She wanted to know why she wasn't good enough.

But there was one thing keeping her from marching over with crimson eyes and flaming hair to demand answers from Rose, or Raven. One thing keeping her not only in control of her temper...but downright _timid_ when it came to bringing her emotions up.

Rose.

She'd lost her little sister once before and she _couldn't_ do it again. She couldn't just fly off the handle and lose her again.

So she waited.

* * *

"Now _that's_ a Katana." Rose smirked, flicking through the pages of a manga in the back of Tukson's Book Trade. "Hey Blake, you ever seen this?" She questioned, flicking the book closed with her index finger holding her spot to display to Blake the cover of 'Highschool DxD Uncensored - Vol. 1' to the cat faunus that was a couple shelves away.

Blake _lit up_ like a road flare and dropped the book she had been glancing over to the floor, blood already starting to drip from her nose.

Rose cackled like a madwoman and returned to glancing over the panels within.

So little time, and so many glorious, glorious funbags to be seen.

"Yep, I'm buying this." She declared, shutting the book and starting to grab the rest of the volumes off the shelf - there were ten of them! Ten!

"And you got onto me about _Ninjas_?!" Blake hissed, looking at the stack of manga volumes with twitching ears and flushed cheeks.

"That was honestly more to do with your taste than anything else. Shonen ai. Blech. Not my thing." Rose grinned cheekily, turning casually to glance over her shoulder when the bell above the door rang to indicate someone had entered the store.

She didn't really know why she did it - Curiosity, perhaps? But that didn't change the fact that when her eyes landed on the mint-haired girl and her...very silver companion she felt her mind go on high alert.

Something about the body language of the pair screamed that they weren't there for books.

And Rose didn't like it.

Not one bit.

"Rose?" Blake asked quietly, apparently having noticed Rose's body stiffen slightly.

That was impressive on its own, because _Rose_ hadn't even noticed that she'd done so.

"Hm?" Rose questioned, turning back to Blake with a smile and casually turning the stack of manga she had chosen on its side and setting it down on the shelf for later while she reached for a volume of another series and began to flick through it.

She cocked her head slightly in the direction of the two newcomers without a word - making sure to keep her movement as small and casual as possible...but enough to let Blake know that she felt there was something… _Off_ about those two.

After all, there was nothing wrong with hanging out in a bookstore for a couple extra hours, right? Sure, she might spend a few extra lien than she had intended to, but she probably would have done that anyway eventually.

"You find anything good? I didn't think there were any new _Ninjas_ sequels out right now." Rose commented.

"Oh my gods, would you shut up about that?" Blake groaned, ears twitching under her bow. "I _do_ have other books - that I like to read! - besides those, you know."

Rose snickered lightly. "Well, yeah, but _A Man With Two Souls_ isn't nearly as fun to tease you about. C'mon Blakey. I'm even giving you ammunition here." She offered, gesturing towards the stack of lewd manga she had already picked out.

Blake paused and narrowed her eyes. "...Are you flirting with me?"

" _Duh._ "

* * *

"That could have gone better." Mercury commented dryly as he left the bookshop with Emerald - Three hours. They had been in the shop for _three hours_ , pretending to browse books and wait for the two girls that had been present when they'd first arrived there to leave.

There was only a certain length of time that one could reasonably wait, though. And Emerald had eventually run out of patience and left, because the two dark themed girls in the shop showed _no_ signs of leaving any time soon.

"Shut up." Emerald grumbled. "We'll come back tomorrow or something."

Provided he was still _there_ tomorrow.

Provided that they hadn't broadcast their impatience all over the store and made it absolutely clear that they hadn't been there browsing for books.

"I wonder what Cinder is gonna say when she finds out." Mercury smirked, folding his hands behind his head.

Emerald scowled.

* * *

"Where _are_ those two?" Yang sighed, dropping her head into her hands above the cafeteria table.

Two weeks.

It had been two weeks since the...incident...at the docks. Neither Blake nor Rose had been back to the dorm at all in that time - the last week of term they had been in classes, but were apparently staying somewhere else at night. And then for the week long break in between terms they'd also been absent.

"I don't know, Yang. Why don't you call and ask?" Weiss snarked back - she was just as frustrated and worried, though for entirely different reasons - but Yang's constant questioning on the subject was driving her up the wall at this point.

"I would if I knew what to say." Yang muttered, sighing and sitting back up straight - and blinking as she saw a freaking _grape_ flying her way from another table. On instinct, she reached up and grabbed it, then looked towards the source.

Nora.

She shrugged, popping the grape into her mouth and chowing down. It was a nice distraction from her current problems, if nothing else.

"I just want to talk to her, y'know?" She offered. "I just...I want to know why. I don't even care why mom left at this point, I...I had a mom. And her name was Summer Rose. I want to know why my _sister_ left at this point. And...I don't want to lose her. But I don't know how to bring it up without…"

Weiss let out a long-suffering sigh, glancing up from her homework as Yang caught another grape from Nora in her mouth.

"It's the last day of break, Yang. They'll probably be back tonight. Believe me, I know how you feel." The heiress' face was turned in much the same manner. She desperately wanted answers from Blake - about a lot of things.

She had realized at this point, that if Blake were part of the current White Fang and wanted her dead, or wanted her to suffer...Well, she'd had plenty of chances to do just that and had taken none of them.

In fact, Blake hadn't shown any particular animosity to _Weiss_ herself...Just to the Schnee Dust Company and to Weiss' opinions regarding the White Fang and the faunus in general.

So while that was a subject she very much would like for Blake to clear up when she could talk to her dark-themed teammate again, she was honestly at this point more curious than anything. Did she have any preconceptions and stereotypes that she was subconsciously adhering to that needed to be cleared up?

If she did, what better way to do that than to discuss the subject with her faunus teammate?

But at the same time, she was afraid - afraid that if she did bring up the subject, it would just re-ignite the argument all over again.

And Weiss wasn't okay with that. She did _not_ like somehow being the only team among the Beacon first years to have split right down the middle.

So really, she hoped - almost more than Yang did - that Rose and Blake would indeed return tonight.

Because she had so many questions.

And she still needed a little bit of time to figure out how to present them.


	12. Chapter 12

Rose and Blake did indeed return to the dorm that night - each carrying a bookbag full of their spoils from Tukson's Book Trade - at some point after the suspicious mint-haired girl and her friend had left the store, the owner had apparently remembered to tell them that all books were 50% off of their listed prices on the shelves.

Which meant that a lot of books got purchased.

Now Rose took a deep breath while her and Blake walked down the pathway towards the dorm, looking up at the stone building with more than a mild amount of dread.

"Want to talk about it?" Blake offered - With all the listening that Rose had done for her regarding the arguments with Weiss, she probably owed her partner at least the same courtesy in return.

Rose sighed and slumped her shoulders.

"I don't know what I would say anyway." She admitted. "I'm just kind of...scared at this point, I guess? What are you supposed to say to a sister that you left behind ten years ago to live with her mother?"

Her fingers trailed on the hilt of _Midnight Rose_ \- less because she was expecting a fight and more because doing - well, anything - with her weapon had always helped to calm her nerves.

"And how am I supposed to tell my parents that I was a part of the White Fang in what it has become?" Blake asked, thinking their situations were, at least, somewhat similar in that regard.

She wasn't entirely correct.

"You have an excuse for that, though!" Rose protested, throwing her head back to stare up at the night sky. "The White Fang was doing something good when you joined. And then it slowly turned into something different while you were there. I _left_ Yang."

She growled and ran a hand through her hair, twisting her black and crimson locks together and taking a deep breath. "There's nothing I can say that will ever make that okay. I made a choice and no matter what I picked I was going to hurt someone. What was I supposed to do?"

She dropped her head, rubbing the back of her skull again. "And I'm scared. Yang's...she's a wild card. It doesn't take a genius to realize that. And I'm afraid of what she'll do when I see her."

She blinked when she felt an arm around her shoulders, squeezing her closer to Blake's side.

"...Blake?"

"I wish I had answers for you." Her partner offered, squeezing her lightly again before relaxing her grip. "My situation with Weiss isn't like that. I'm scared of what she'll do, the questions she'll ask...I don't know how to tell her that 'Hey, I used to rob your family's trains. But it's okay, I'm not like that anymore.' without her getting me kicked out of school at best. But at the end of the day...Weiss isn't my sister."

Rose let out a short laugh.

"You sure you don't want to go back to the hotel…?" Rose asked.

Blake gave her a look.

"Yeah, yeah. I know." Rose sighed, looking back at the ground, shoulders slumping. "Gotta face the music sometime. Might as well be now."

They were at the entry to the dorm building now.

Rose took a breath.

"Alright, here goes nothing."

* * *

 _I'm a wildfire you won't taaame_

 _Not even my temper can put out the flaaame_

 _There's no way to contaaain_

 _This storm swelling inside me!_

Yang was, in a word, restless.

And what better way to deal with a restless heart and mind than to throw on some music and sing and dance your heart until you were too tired to do anything except go to sleep?

Rose still hadn't returned - Yang was beginning to wonder if she ever would.

This particular song did wonders for helping her vent.

It was a good thing Weiss was still in the library - she'd probably complain about the racket. But _dammit_ , Yang needed this.

 _I'm a bomb you can't defuuuse_

 _I'd just accept you're gonna looose_

 _Can't turn down, I refuuuse_

 _To hold back anymore!_

And really - why should she? Yes, she wanted Rose to come back...But Rose having left in the first place _hurt_. Raven choosing her half sister over her own blood daughter _hurt_. Was she supposed to just ignore all of that as if the past ten years had never happened?

 _All of these voices inside of my heaaad_

 _Blinding my sight in a curtain of reeed_

 _Fruuustration is getting bigger-_

"Bang, bang bang...Pull my Devil Trigger."

Yang nearly jumped out of her skin as well as the shadow-boxing routine she had fallen into, whipping about to face whoever had decided to join the chorus...Only to find the face of Rose, eyes closed and head moving to the music.

"When the night ends, it's not overrr...Weave right through to get closerrr…"

Silver eyes opened and Yang swallowed when her red cloaked stranger of a sister stepped closed.

"Like a silver bullet piercing throoough...I throw myseeelf...into youuu."

Silence reigned between the two of them for the next minute - just as the song continued into the instrumental section.

Eventually Rose coughed awkwardly. "Good song." She murmured, rubbing the back of her neck and looking at the floor between them.

"Ruby…" Yang breathed back, reaching for her scroll and shakily pausing the music.

"Uhm...Hi?" Rose offered back with a sheepish smile and a shrug.

She found herself trapped in the patented death hug of a Xiao Long.

" _Urk_. _Yang. Air_. _Please…_ " Rose grunted out, kicking her feet - which had been pulled completely off of the ground.

Yang just nuzzled her neck.

"You came back."

"Of...course I...did….You're...my sister." Rose grunted out, wriggling in Yang's grip. There really was no escaping it, so all she could do was do her best to try to breathe through it and wait for Yang to release her.

Rose dropped to the floor when Yang did so, almost immediately after she said this.

She swallowed.

"At least...I hope I am…" She admitted, kicking her foot shyly.

Yang sighed and tugged Rose back in for a much gentler hug.

"You are. I just...I want to know _why_."

"Are you ready for the answer?" Rose asked, looking up through her bangs. "Because you weren't. At the docks, I mean. You have every right to be upset but you weren't even listening to me so I don't think you would have listened to any explanation and-."

She was silenced by Yang's finger on her lips.

"Probably not, no." Yang admitted. "But dammit, something is gonna need to give. And I don't want to lose you again. So hit me with it."

Rose nodded. "...Wanna go for a walk?"

-RWBY-

Rose felt far more comfortable in motion than she had standing still in the dorm room, that was for sure.

"I don't remember a whole lot from before I left." She admitted, hugging herself with her arms for lack of anything else to do with them. "I was...what? Five? So I guess it's not all that surprising. I remember I was taking a nap and you were pulling me along in the wagon...Then suddenly you were gone and there were Grimm everywhere. I thought I was going to die."

Yang winced. "I'm sorry…" She started, only for Rose to raise a hand to stop her.

"It's fine, Yang. We were kids. We didn't know any better. Realistically you couldn't have done anything anyway." Rose took a breath. "Right as the Beowolves were about to jump on me...There she was."

She paused, shaking her head clear of the nightmarish image of a pack of Beowolves about to end her.

"The first thing she said when she looked at me was 'You look just like Summer.'"

Yang winced. "Well, she's not wrong." The blonde admitted - from what few memories she had of Summer Rose, other than the pictures that were spread around the house, that statement was...very accurate.

"She was going to bring me home." Rose noted, looking up at the shattered moon in the sky. "But she just... She seemed so lonely."

That was more or less Rose's reason for doing basically everything. And she knew quite well how awful that sounded.

"That was her own fault!" Yang protested in much the way that Rose found she had expected.

"It was." Rose agreed. "But I didn't want to just leave her like that. I didn't even think about you or Dad. Not really."

"So...What, me and dad just aren't important to you?"

"No!" Rose protested. "Urgh, you are. Really, both of you. But you had each other, and Mom-Raven...She didn't have anybody."

"She could have had me! What makes you so much better than her actual daughter?!"

"What? Yang, no!" The cloaked girl protested. "That's not...She doesn't think she's good enough to be your mother! And as bad as this sounds, there was nothing to really make her _try_ with you. Mom was around to take care of you in her place, and...By the time she wasn't, it was too late for her to think she had a chance."

Yang was quiet for a moment in the wake of this explanation. "So what made you different?"

"Because I look like Summer." Rose explained quietly. "She loved Mom. With everything she had. So… She was willing to do whatever it took to raise me. And...and by the time I realized I wasn't going to get to see you again for a while, I thought it was too late to come back too. When I realized it was you at the orientation….I was dreading talking to you because I thought if you recognized me you would be so angry at me that we would never be able to talk to each other."

"How could I be mad at you when it was my fault you disappeared in the first place?" Yang asked softly.

Rose just shrugged. "Same way you were mad at me at the docks?"

"Oh, Ruby...I wasn't mad at _you._ Yeah, the things you said hurt...But you're my sister. And I will always love you, no matter how hard you try to make it. I was mad at _her."_

"I'm sorry, Yang. I'm the worst sister ever." Rose lamented, dropping her head.

Yang just hugged her again. "How about we go get some cookies and call it even?"


	13. Chapter 13

"This game is like Yu-gi-oh mixed with Risk." Rose commented with her brow furrowed, pouring over the rulebook for 'Remnant: The Game' as well as the descriptions of the cards in her hand.

This was not a game she was familiar with. Most of the games that had been...available...to her in the tribe had some other purpose behind them. Or were more common. Chess was a staple, but for the most part it had been sports - soccer in the warmer months, hockey in the cold, combat sports throughout.

That being said, she was at least _aware_ of the two games she likened it to through the collection of comics, manga, and novels she'd read.

"I have no idea what I'm doing." Weiss admitted, looking at her hand.

Rose gave a one-armed shrug. "I'm pretty sure Goldilocks is the only one who does. She probably picked this for payback purposes." She noted, giving the brawler a silver eyed gaze that was challenging her to disagree.

She wanted to make things up to Yang. She really did. She wanted a relationship with her sister. But there were questions that were bouncing around in the brawler's mind that Rose simply didn't have answers for.

Looking back on it, she couldn't find a way to explain the logic she had used as a child that took her to Anima. That took her away from Yang in the first place. Nor could she speak for her adopted mother. The adopted mother that she had felt had grown just as much as she herself had in the ten years since.

And it didn't really matter. Because all that was in the past. It couldn't be changed.

So here she was, in the library, playing a board game and trying to connect with her long lost sister.

Blake was silent through this whole thing, her ears twitching beneath her bow - Rose shot her a look, knowing what was bothering her partner and silently vowing to discuss everything with her dark-themed teammate later, away from prying eyes and ears.

* * *

"You know, normally I might be upset at losing...But it was really satisfying to see Jaune curb stomp Goldilocks after she spent all day withholding game mechanics from us." Rose noted with a shake of her head while they returned to their room, the board game safe in it's box underneath her arm.

She promptly deposited it on the desk, hanging back near the door with Blake.

She gave her partner a glance and a nod, the two of them turning back towards the door to go for a walk.

"Stop."

Rose blinked, turning back to Blake. Who blinked at her in turn, and then they both turned back to the source of the demand.

One Schnee heiress, pointing a finger at them accusingly.

"Lately you've both been quiet, anti-social, and moody."

"Uhh...have you met these two?" Yang offered, glancing between Weiss and the R B pair.

"Which I _get_ is kind of your guys' thing. But you've both been doing it more than usual! Sneaking off and whispering at each other when you think nobody is looking! You're both plotting something, and the last time you both went off and did something on your own, you ended up in a fight at the docks without us! You could have gotten hurt!"

Rose blinked owlishly again when Weiss was suddenly standing atop a very precariously balanced chair, still pointing at them.

"Where did that come from?"

"So, you two...What. Is. Wrong?"

There was beat of silence before Weiss was on the ground and returning the chair to the desk as if she had never been standing on it in the first place.

Rose gave her a golf clap, honestly impressed by the balancing act.

"Ahem." Weiss cleared her throat pointedly, looking between Rose and Blake expectantly.

This caused the faunus and the bandit to glance at each other again, the former shrugging helplessly.

Rose sighed. "It's Torchwick and the White Fang. Me and Blake were talking about it before we ever went to the Harbor; The White Fang has never needed that much dust before. Nobody would need that much dust. Not unless they were planning to do something crazy. Like...overthrow a government level crazy."

Yang bit her lip. "Ozpin told us not to worry about it, though. The Police and the Huntsmen can handle it, right?"

Silver eyes closed and sighed out. "Maybe, maybe not. But we-" she motioned between herself and Blake "-have something they don't."

"And what's that?"

"Experience." Rose noted simply. "Blake was in the White Fang. She knows how they work. I grew up in a Bandit Camp. I know how thieves think."

Weiss and Yang both startled at that. All the pieces had lain before them for the past couple weeks, sure, but they never really registered any of it. So Rose outright admitting that she was a bandit, a thief...came as a bit of a shock to the pair.

Weiss was the first one to recover. "Okay, between the stopping thieves and freedom fighting, I'm SURE the two of you think that you're ready to go out and stop these miscreants-"

Rose gave a snort.

"-But let me be the voice of reason here? We're students! We're not ready to handle this kind of situation!"

"That doesn't-"

"We're _not_ ready!" Weiss repeated heatedly.

"And we might never _be_ ready!" Rose and Blake shouted back in stereo.

"You think Torchwick and the White Fang are going to wait four years for us to graduate before they make a move?" Rose snapped.

"Because they're not! They're out there, _somewhere_ , planning that move! None of us know what it is, but it's going to happen, whether we're ready or not!" Blake continued.

"And _we_ might be the best chance of figuring out what that move is! We know how they think! So we can at least try to *get* ready rather than sit around and trust someone else to protect us." Rose finally finished.

Yang looked between the darker half of Team RWBY with a somber lilac gaze. "Alright." She interrupted before the pair could continue. "All in favor of becoming the youngest Huntresses to single-handedly take down a corrupt organization threatening the Kingdom of Vale?" She asked, raising a hand.

Three pairs of eyes snapped to her and all of them did a double-take.

"What?" She asked, feeling self-conscious, but still holding her hand in the air.

"Have you _lost your mind_?!" Weiss hissed.

"You'd...do that?" Rose asked softly.

This time it was Yang's turn to recoil and do a double-take. "Of course I would. You're my sister, and more than that, you're my team leader. Where you go, I go."

"We're doomed." Weiss sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright, do we at least have a _plan_?"

Rose and Blake looked at each other. "Not one that involves you two, just yet." Rose admitted. "We've been scouring every bit of news and information we could get our hands on. Looking for any other dust robberies or inconsistencies. Any kind of pattern of behavior for Torchwick or the White Fang. Blake's trying to find out if the White Fang has any kind of regular meeting schedule, see if we can pick up any information from a meeting."

"Isn't that little risky?" Yang asked worriedly, looking between the two of them. "You're not faunus, and she'd be going in alone if it's just her."

"If we weren't willing to take that risk, we wouldn't have come up with the plan." Rose countered.

Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose again. "Alright, fine. I can work with that plan. I'll check the SDC records. I'm a member of the family, so it shouldn't be an issue. Incident reports, shipping manifests and sales audits will be a lot more precise than whatever you two could scrounge up on your own."

"And I know a guy in the shady side of town that knows everything going on in Vale. Shouldn't be too much of an issue to pry something out of him." Yang offered.

"And you're getting onto us about risk?" Rose snarked with an arched brow.

"I was looking for you and mom." Yang noted simply. The tone of her voice saying all that needed to be said about how desperate she had been to find any trace of Rose or Raven.

"...Oh."


	14. Chapter 14

"Alright, so here's the deal." Rose began, stretching her arms over her head.

Right now they were in one of the training arenas, Rose having booked this particular arena for two hours every night.

They had agreed to start investigating Torchwick and the White Fang, but the meeting wasn't until Friday. So that meant they had three full days to prepare themselves for what was to come...just in case things hit the fan.

Weiss' job was, in theory, easy enough. She would just go to the library, contact the SDC, and download all the requested information, which she would then spend the weekend pouring over for any clues...Provided that there was nothing around that would call her to their side.

Which, considering how risky a situations Rose, Blake and Yang were going into per the plan, wasn't entirely out of the question.

Which was why they were doing this.

"We need to train. So we're going to train. If we want to be a solid team we have to know how each other works...so right now let's do one on ones." She directed motioning with her right arm between herself and Blake, who was observing with a twitching bow, and with her left gesturing between Yang and Weiss, who were looking on blankly.

"First things first...weapon swap! Trade weapons with your partner. Get a feel for how they fight." Rose directed, pulling Midnight Rose - still sheathed in it's saya - off of her belt and tossing it through the air at her faunus partner.

The where a slight hiss of surprise at the throw, but Blake nevertheless caught Rose's prized weapon. After only a brief moment of hesitation, she handed off Gambol Shroud to Rose and the pair both unsheathed the weapons and gave them experimental twirls.

Both of them found that, in their basic forms at least, their partner's weapon wasn't too dissimilar to their own. Both swords, both with functional sheathes that could be used in combat. The primary differences were just in the weight and balance difference between the two, and that Gambol Shroud had a pistol and a ribbon, whereas Midnight Rose had dust channels and a bow form.

Nodding to herself, Rose turned to observe Weiss and Yang.

The former, holding Ember Celica, the latter Myrtenaster. Both of them holding an identical furrowed look of 'what in the actual fuck am I supposed to do with _this?_ ' on their faces.

Rose found herself chortling so hard that she couldn't breath.

* * *

Fighting with Gambol Shroud turned out to be as easy as Rose had first expected it to be - she adapted to the chain scythe like a fish to water, ducking under swipes from her own Katana, blocking others with the sharpened edge of Gambol Shroud's sheath.

Gambol Shroud really _was_ like Midnight Rose. With the notable exception of the pistol function of the grip.

Speaking of which…

She whipped the blade back into its folded form and gave that pistol a try or three.

In the end, the fight went much as she had predicted it when Weiss had asked weeks ago; Ruby would rush at Blake with her semblance and do everything she could to overwhelm her partner, only to slash through a shadow clone and be right back where they started.

The fight between Yang and Weiss had ended long ago, with the former having won...though not due to any of the merits of Myrtenaster as a weapon; at some point of both of them flailing around cluelessly with each other's weapons, Yang had just given up and gone at Weiss hand to hand, with or without Ember Celica.

It worked.

And now both of them were just watching while the darker half of team RWBY just… _danced_ all over the arena. Both of them going all out, and yet neither of them able to actually land a hit on each other. Both of them using each other's weapon like it came naturally to them, with the sole exception that Blake wasn't really using Midnight Rose's bow form at all, nor using the dust channels to their full potential.

Now? This was just a battle of attrition. And it became very clear that _both_ of them were used to _running_ \- despite panting for breath and being matted in sweat, neither of them were backing down.

The only hits on their aura meters were from the usage of their own semblances.

Rose's semblance was a steady drain on her reserves; constantly using it had her using small chunks of her aura at a steady rate.

On the other hand, Blake's shadow clones were more sparsely used than Rose's speed, but they took a far larger chunk of her aura at the same time.

In the end, Rose won - although it was in a manner that had truly surprised her; she'd just _outlasted_ Blake. One too many shadow clones pushing Blake to the brink, leaving her the choice of getting hit by a swipe from Rose, or using her clone and 'losing' anyway.

There was very little that could wipe the grin off of Rose's face in that moment.

* * *

"You're a sadist." Weiss breathed out from where she was collapsed on the floor of the arena, Midnight Rose clutched in a hand that was trying to calm the stitch in her side while blue eyes locked to silver.

Rose grinned. "You haven't given up yet, what does that make you?" She asked, then twirled Myrtenaster in one hand and stabbed the tip into the ground.

She wasn't nearly the expert with dust that Weiss was; the girl was the heir to the Schnee Dust Company, after all. But she knew more than enough to use a multi-action dust rapier to it's potential, thank you very much.

A wave of fire ran at the heiress, who grunted while leaping off to the side and once more beginning the dance, semblance scrambling frantically to create glyph after glyph for her to launch herself off of, trying first to dodge Rose's uses of ice, fire, wind and lightning from her own weapon and then trying to launch herself _at_ her team leader, utilizing Midnight Rose's own dust channels to return the favor.

Rose was honestly impressed.

Sure, she had had to beat Weiss to a pulp, as evidenced by the bruises and scrapes that covered the heiresses' face, arms, and legs. But Weiss had _stopped thinking_ and that was the goal Rose had set in mind for the night.

The fact that Weiss was actually using Midnight Rose effectively was just a bonus!

She split herself into two separate streams of rose petals, disappearing away from an attack that would have skewered her if she hadn't had her semblance, reforming herself on the other side of Weiss and turning…

...To find Weiss skating across the floor on a black glyph, Midnight Rose in bow form and loosing an arrow at her.

One that actually scraped her cheek.

Rose almost forgot she was in a fight long enough to blink.

"You can use a bow?!" She blurted, jamming Myrtenaster into the ground to build a wall of ice for defense.

"I'll have you know Archery is a very relaxing pastime!"

"Well, I'll be damned Princess."

* * *

Swords still weren't her thing, but all things considered...Gambol Shroud at least was more fitting to her style than Myrtenaster was.

Yang Xiao Long was not suited to finesse.

Why stay at a distance and poke at the problem when you could just hit it, repeatedly?

So that being said, the match against Blake was far more of an actual challenge...and an actual _fight_ than the one against Weiss had been.

For one; Blake was apparently no slouch in hand to hand.

That wasn't to say that Ember Celica was nearly her style, but she definitely had a better clue what she was doing with them than Weiss had.

She promised, that meant a lot more than it probably seems.

If Blake hadn't already been tired from her match against Ruby, with Yang having had no real challenge against Weiss, this match probably would have lasted longer than it did, but for the most part this match was just a matter of time; Blake just didn't have any way to do enough damage to Yang to overcome her semblance and her own was built for defense...not offense.

"You good, Goldilocks?" Rose taunted, Ember Celica wrapped around her wrists and a smirk on her lips that was only complimented by the scabbed over scrape on her cheek that had come from one of her own arrows.

"Bring it, Sis." Yang shot back.

Midnight Rose, being as similar to Gambol Shroud as it was, meant that Yang had been able to at least partially figure _something_ out for how to use it effectively.

She still wasn't _really_ expecting Rose to close the 30 foot gap between them in a veil of rose petals and start treating her like a _speed bag_ at the local kickboxing gym.

Even despite her brawler nature, despite the fact that she was used to taking damage and dishing it right back twice over, despite the fact that her semblance was still raring to go, Rose's initial left hook still _hurt like a bitch_ and the series of jabs and crosses that followed weren't exactly light despite their speed.

They hurt entirely _because_ of the speed behind them.

And the shotgun blasts. Those didn't hurt either.

Turns out the kickboxing reference was more apt than she had intended as well, because the knee buried in her gut _also_ hurt like a bitch.

She _finally_ managed to shove Rose away and actually _draw_ Midnight Rose only when both halves of Ember Celica had already clicked empty.

"Son of a…" She panted, her eyes flickering between red and lilac.

"I have _got_ to get me one of these!" Rose whooped, taking a break from the fight to look down at the gauntlets covering her wrists. "You still have the blueprints for these? I could totally go for them being slimmer but _damn_ these are a blast!"

"Hah. Good one, sis."

"...What the hell are you...oh...oh fuck me. Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope-"

"Because _shotgun blast?_ Eh? Ehhhh?"

"No. Just no."

* * *

"Can we just play rock paper scissors and _say_ we fought?"

" _Yes. Please."_

"Nope!"

"Rose!/Quiet, Dolt!"

* * *

"So, what did we learn today? Besides shotgun gauntlets being _awesome!_ " Rose fangirled, looking longingly at her sisters weapons.

"That I hate you with a burning passion?" Weiss asked from her location. That is to say, face down and drooling on the floor with all of her limbs feeling like they were made of jello.

"Well, good thing your powers are all ice related then!" Rose grinned.

"I will _invent_ cold fire _just to spite you._ "

"...You know that would do the opposite of spiting me, right?"

"Shut up."

Rose just chuckled, turning to Blake and Yang for their input.

"I need to work on my stamina?" Blake asked, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Nope." Rose disagreed, shaking her head. "You had me on the ropes in the first fight. You could try to improve your _recovery_ but honestly, I just think you could stand to figure out a way to be more...aggressive?"

She scratched the side of her head. "And I don't mean like, sacrifice your style just for the sake of hitting things harder. Maybe dust grenades? Even just flashbangs would be your kind of thing, I think." She noted, nodding to herself.

"And I need to figure out how to use a sword." Yang deadpanned.

Rose grinned. "Perfect. Weiss can teach you with Myrtenaster and you can teach her how to punch things properly."

"I hate."

"Love you too, Princess."


End file.
